


Promises (things left behind)

by heenimlee



Series: Back to you [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Disbandment, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 01:55:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8825674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heenimlee/pseuds/heenimlee
Summary: Jaehyun thinks about the past decade of his life, about broken promises and decisions made.Story picks up years after the end of The Line.





	1. Chapter 1

Jaehyun is in a good mood today, his soft humming echoing a little too loudly in the near empty hallway. He doesn’t really know why, but he has this strange feeling in his stomach, like something wonderful is going to happen soon. It’s late in the afternoon, and he has just wrapped up filming. He hasn’t eaten since that spoonful of cereal he hurriedly forced into his mouth early that morning, and he’s itching to duck into some obscure restaurant and eat everything on the menu. Or maybe just a plateful of Golbaengi muchim.

His stomach growls.

Definitely Golbaengi.

A group of girls dressed in matching outfits is waiting in the hallway, some rookie group by the looks of it. The moment he sees them, he straightens his back a little, pushes his shoulders back and walks briskly, confidently, so he looks a little bit more like the gracious, dignified, charming Jung Jaehyun that people know and respect in the industry. They notice him walking past, and they’re flustered, bowing frantically, greeting him nervously with _a good afternoon sunbaenim._

Jaehyun smiles politely and ducks his head in acknowledgment, walking away with an amused smile on his face. He remembers that that was him sixteen years ago, standing there in a ridiculous outfit with NCT members, nervously greeting all those senior musicians passing by, who had debuted before he knew how to talk, waiting for some insignificant filming to begin.

He’s halfway out the door when a familiar voice calls out to him. He stops dead, turning towards the voice with a stupid smile tugging at his lips.

“Taeil hyung!” Jaehyun says happily, and Taeil waves and hurries over.

“Jaehyun-ah,” he says, hugging the younger awkwardly.

Jaehyun chuckles, same old Taeil hyung.

“How have you been?” Jaehyun asks.

“Good, great, you?” Taeil says, and he seems like he’s about to say something else when a loud honk interrupts him.

Jaehyun looks up, seeing a white van cruising up to the entrance, his manager half hanging out the window beckoning at him. Jaehyun holds up his hand, fingers splayed, telling him he’ll be there in a bit, and then he turns back to Taeil.

“I’m good, too, hyung. Jesus it’s been so long,” Jaehyun says, that same stupid grin on his face. Taeil nods. “How’s Mrs. Moon?”

“Hormonal as hell,” Taeil says with a chuckle.

Jaehyun’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wait, you don’t mean…” he trails off, registering the quiet sort of happiness in Taeil’s eyes. For a fragmented moment, he feels a twist of envy in his chest, and then he chides himself, laughs, and claps him on the back. “Congratulations, hyung. Another one, really?”

Taeil grins and opens his mouth, but he’s cut off by the honking again.

“I’m coming,” Jaehyun calls out.

“Hey, if you’re busy, don’t let me keep you,” Taeil says.

“I’m sorry hyung, I sort of have to be somewhere right now,” Jaehyun says apologetically, but he’s secretly a little thankful that they don’t have the time to talk about his personal life, about the talk that he knows is making the rounds in the industry.

Taeil smiles. “No worries, I know you’re a busy man these days,” he says with a good natured laugh.

Jaehyun chuckles. “I’ll get going then, hyung. Let’s catch up soon,” he says, and Taeil nods.

“Hey, by the way, I heard the new album. It sounds amazing, hyung,” he adds, and Taeil smiles, halfway between genuine and awkward, and it has Jaehyun drowning in nostalgia all over again.

 

Jaehyun sits with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the regular punctuation of passing streetlights and buildings being replaced with trees, wide open spaces. He’s hosting some charity event in some shithole he can’t even remember the name of, and he’s sitting in the back of the van, slowly losing sensation in one leg, and he squirms, trying to get the blood flowing again.

He smiles unknowingly, thinking about his encounter with Taeil. He looks good, his hyung, he looks healthy, and he looks happy, and that makes him happy. He wonders where everyone else is. Where’s Mark, he wonders. Last he heard, Mark went back home to pursue a degree, he doesn’t remember which one, but he knows he must be working somewhere nice by now.

Yuta is here, in Seoul. He’s a temporary guest on some vague gameshow. Donghyuk has branched out into acting, their stupid baby faced maknae, making teenage girls swoon every Wednesday night on KBS.

Doyoung is still singing, quite successful, managing to do a little solo tour last year. He’s still in touch, sort of. Still the same kind of pain in the ass he’s always been.

He grins, remembering that time he and Doyoung met for drinks, and by the time the night ended, he was dragging a drunken dead weight Doyoung into his apartment and letting him fall into an ungainly heap on the couch. Solbi was so mad at him that night.

Solbi, that beautiful, beautiful woman.

 

Jaehyun smiles ruefully, still staring out the window. The sky is darkening, a deep grey hanging low on the horizon, and he remembers the day it was decided.

It was a December morning, their sixth meeting regarding NCT’s disbandment and the termination of their contract. Everything was finalized, an era was ending. Eight years of working together wrapped up quietly in a board room on the third floor of the SM building.

All the members had lunch together that day. Something solemn lay heavily underneath the chatter and the raucous laughter, some unnamed melancholy, feeling the loss of something dear. They were on separate paths from that moment on, they wouldn’t share fatigue in a practice room late at night, and they wouldn’t share glory on massive stages with stadiums full of fans screaming for them. Yuta wouldn’t call him fat, Sicheng wouldn’t suddenly start dancing to Red Velvet songs halfway through practice, Jaehyun wouldn’t clap Mark on the back right when he’s spacing out just to startle the shit out of him, and Taeil wouldn’t laugh awkwardly at their antics from his corner of the room.

Of course, they’d meet even if they didn’t see each other at work every day, but Jaehyun knew it wouldn’t be the same. Everyone knew. And perhaps Donghyuk was the one who took it the hardest, because Donghyuk was the one who thrived on those moments with his hyungs, ever the maknae, even well into his twenties.

Or maybe Jaehyun himself took it the worst. Because he knew that things would be difficult now, and when he looked over at Taeyong that day, quietly prodding at a piece of Kimchi with his chopsticks, quiet, so quiet, he realized that Taeyong knew it too.

Taeyong, his partner, his lover, his everything back then.

They had been together for over eight years at that time. Eight years, of beautiful, beautiful summer. There were fights, quite a few, times when he was sure Taeyong would leave, times when he was sure he’d leave, but they came together again. They couldn’t help themselves, and the fact that they worked together, the fact that they saw each other every morning, it forced them together, gave them the opportunity to fix things, for Taeyong to pull him aside after practice and mumble an apology into his skin, for Jaehyun to sidle up beside a silently fuming Taeyong, cold, closed off, Taeyong, and melt him down with hands carding through his hair, massaging his shoulders, kissing him to bridge the gap between them. That’s how they stayed together so long, even if they were so different.

That’s how Jaehyun could think back to everything happy, everything sad, all the moments in between, in the past decade of his life and find that Taeyong was there, right beside him, holding his hand, backing him up, and he knew it was the same for the older.

But if their careers took separate paths, if they fell into two separate, packed, conflicting schedules, two separate ambitions, he didn’t know what would happen.

At that moment, when Taeyong’s gaze lifted and met Jaehyun’s, in that moment they knew that things would get tough, that staying together would take work, and Jaehyun felt some quiet sinking feeling inside him, but Taeyong smiled at him. That perfect smile. And that made it all better.

 

They’re slowing down, passing through a toll gate, the red of taillights ahead of them, the sound of impatience and the oppressive humidity outside his window. Jaehyun sits there, his eyes unfocused, vaguely registering a middle aged man on a yellow moped scooter, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of hand. There’s a large, faded, yellow delivery box behind him. With a bored sort of curiosity he wonders what he’s selling, where he’s from and where he’s going, one man on a little moped on the highway.

He squints at the box, but he can’t make out the lettering. He settles back in his seat, pointlessly ruminating on what an ugly fucking color that is.

Taeyong once had socks that color. They were old, fading, but he still wore them every now and then. Every winter for years, he saw them, sticking out distractingly from under his pajamas, and it used to hurt his sensibilities on so many levels but Taeyong just wouldn’t throw them out.

He grins stupidly.

He remembers that autumn day Taeyong showed up at his apartment unannounced, shortly after the end of NCT. By that time they had signed on with different entertainment companies. Taeyong’s schedule had filled up almost immediately, but Jaehyun was struggling a little, he was stressed out, because he felt like the offers that were coming his way weren’t good enough, but he didn’t know if he should risk waiting for better offers, things that suited his image better. What if they never came? Would it be safer to just accept a position on some silly late night entertainment show even if it was a step down from where he was, just so he’d have a steady income?

He was worried, and his future seemed unsure, and he called Taeyong late at night and talked about it for hours. The next day, Taeyong came over in the middle of the day, smiled and kissed him, and kissed him some more.

“Wait,” Taeyong said, his hands squeezing Jaehyun’s. “You’re better than slapstick comedy, and wonderful things will come your way. You’re witty and charming and handsome, and so fucking talented. So just wait a little longer. Till that happens, I’ll support you.”

“Hyung,” Jaehyun said softly, unsure of what to say next. There was a warmth in his chest because Taeyong had come over just to make him feel better, just to say these things.

“Stop stressing,” Taeyong said, reaching into his coat pocket, pulling out a balled up mess of yellow and handing it to Jaehyun.

Jaehyun took it from him, looking at it, somewhat puzzled. “Socks,” Jaehyun said and looked up at Taeyong. “You’re giving me ten year old socks?”

“Eight and a half. And they’re not just socks, they’re lucky socks,” Taeyong said pointedly. “They’ll bring good things into your life.”

Jaehyun chuckled.

“Don’t laugh you shit,” Taeyong said. “It’s true, I was wearing those the first time we kissed.”

Jaehyun laughed that day, telling his hyung he gets cheesier every year, kissing him breathless, falling into bed with him, almost getting him late for his afternoon schedule.

 

 

Fucking socks, Jaehyun thinks with a smile. He sits back, watching the first few tentative drops of rain flecking the window. That distant looming darkness has choked up the sky right above them. He thinks back, wishing it had stayed that way. That beautiful, beautiful summer. He thinks back, to their first fight after that.

Jaehyun didn’t know if it really was the socks, or if it was the clarity and support Taeyong gave him, but by the end of the month he got the offer he was waiting for. He was to fill in for the main MC’s absence for four months on a variety show. Great pay, great exposure, the perfect next step. The moment he got off the phone with his manager, he called Taeyong.

“Hyung,” he said. “Hyung, hyung, hyung, I got an offer and I’ve accepted and I start filming on Monday, hyung, thank you so much.”

Taeyong chuckled on the other end of the line. “What are you thanking me for?” he said. “This is all you. Congratulations, b… Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun chuckled when he realized Taeyong was about to say baby, and he stopped himself. “You with someone?”

“At work.”

“You can’t really talk comfortably?”

Taeyong hums.

“Hyung,” he said, his voice dropping to something low and sexy, something he used when he wanted Taeyong to drown him in pleasure. He was feeling cheeky. “What if I told you I’m taking my clothes off right now, what if I told you I’m waiting for you?”

Taeyong cleared his throat.

“I would say you’re kind of an asshole, Jung Jaehyun.”

“Come home soon, baby,” Jaehyun breathed, holding back laughter picturing Taeyong shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “I want to fuck you, hyung, don’t you want to fuck me, too?”

There was a brief silence.

“I’ll see you tonight,” Taeyong said, and Jaehyun grinned.

“Okay,” he said, chuckling. “Love you. Work hard, don’t be a slob. Bye.”

Taeyong cleared his throat again. “Yes, that. Me, also, as well, that, right. Bye.”

 

Four months in, he was offered a permanent spot on that show. He didn’t know if he should accept it or not, because the exposure from that show brought in a ton of new opportunities, and he had already accepted two other offers, one drama and one other variety.  His schedule was packed tight. He was happy that he was working, he was happy that the money was coming in steady and his career was picking up again. But he hadn’t had the time to see Taeyong half as much as he should have.

They talked whenever they could, but between Jaehyun’s three massive projects and Taeyong’s preparation for a solo debut, they were falling behind on the time they should have been spending together. It was difficult sometimes, when he missed Taeyong and he was so fucking tired at the end of the day, and he called him, only to find that he’s still working, or when Taeyong called him and he couldn’t really talk, when they were too tired to make the effort to meet. He was sort of banking on this four month thing coming to an end so he could get some breathing space, so he could hold his hyung and sleep for two days straight.

But then the offer to extend his contract came, and he thought it would be stupid to say no.

 

Taeyong had gone off for a photoshoot to some obscure coastal town that Jaehyun couldn’t remember the name of. Jaehyun missed him terribly. They had barely seen each other for a couple of weeks and the last time they met, they had argued about something stupid, something about their next step, some pretense of a thing where Taeyong wanted to say I haven’t seen you in so fucking long, don’t extend your contract because if you do, I won’t get to see you at all and I miss you so much, Jaehyun, don’t do it. And Jaehyun wanted to say it’ll be great for my career, it’ll be great for my future, our future, I miss you too, hyung, but please understand.

But somehow they had managed to argue like they always did, in circles, hiding carefully behind composed, politically correct statements, and nothing true came through. That was the day they found out just how much they could hurt each other.

The fight was over, Taeyong had left Jaehyun’s apartment that night, left Jaehyun with the sound of a door slamming shut, left him waiting for a phone call, waiting for him to come back.

He called, after two days, and told him he needed to go to some coastal town – God, he really can’t remember the name. What was that damned – some fucking shithole, for a photoshoot, and he didn’t want to leave when they were fighting like that.

Jaehyun smiled that day. And when Taeyong came back, Jaehyun made sure, despite his aching body and his eyes fluttering shut, he made sure he was there waiting in his apartment for him. When the lock beeped and the door opened, and Taeyong stepped in and found Jaehyun sitting in his usual spot, his favorite spot in Taeyong’s apartment, cross legged on the grey armchair in the corner, flipping through a magazine, Taeyong’s smile was radiant.

That night they fell asleep with their limbs in a familiar tangle, worn out, sighing into naked skin.

 

Thunder rumbles in the distance, and the rain is beginning. Tentative, but stronger than that initial misty drizzle.

“It’s not an outdoor event is it?” Jaehyun asks his manager, his eyes following the crooked trail of a raindrop trickling down the glass.

The man chuckles. “Luckily, no,” he says.

“How much further?” Jaehyun asked tiredly.

“Another hour. Get some sleep.”

Jaehyun hums absently. The rumble of tires on asphalt is soothing, and if he lets it, that’ll put him to sleep, he knows. But he stays awake, relishing the bittersweet of his memories.

 

Jaehyun extended his contract, and he didn’t want to admit it back then, but he knows now. He should have listened to Taeyong, listened to the things he was too kind to really say out loud. He should never have taken that job because Taeyong was right.

Taeyong was upset, when Jaehyun told him he had decided to do it, but he smiled and nodded and he tried his best not to show it. Because at the end of the day it was Jaehyun’s decision, it was his life and his career. Because he’d never hold him back from his career. Because he loved Jaehyun and was willing to support him and make their relationship work, after so many years together, he had learnt not to run. Jaehyun was grateful for that, grateful that he finally understood. He was thankful and in love and he kissed Taeyong till his smile seemed real again.

 

If he thinks back, it really was good for his career. He’s still doing that show now, and it’s still popular in its eighth year on air.

It quickly became clear that despite their best intentions, things weren’t quite working out. Taeyong still supported his decision, still called whenever he could and came over whenever he could, and Jaehyun did the same but every time they met, it had to be carefully planned on a day they were both free, and that was rare and it turned into a fucking chore. It didn’t feel as natural as it used to, it felt forced, painfully forced. They were growing tired.

One night, Jaehyun went over to Taeyong’s place, late, after filming wrapped up. They ate leftovers, and they laughed together for a bit, and then Taeyong asked him, “How was work?”

And Jaehyun replied, “It was good. Tiring.”

And then they fell into silence, dotted only with some vague fragmented conversation, because that was a dead end, that was a full stop, that was I’m too tired to talk right now.

Taeyong’s management told him that since his solo promotions had come to a close, and he was experiencing a sort of lull in activity, this would be the most advisable time for his military service. He called Jaehyun to tell him, he called to say they have a couple of months to fix things, to make them strong and perfect like they used to be, because he’d have to leave soon. He couldn’t quite put that into words, but Jaehyun heard it all in his long silences, in his hesitant sentences.

“Jaehyun, I… don’t want to go, I don’t want to leave like this.”

Like this, like I don’t know if we’ll make it. Will you wait for me? Are we strong enough for this?

They really tried their best, but they couldn’t keep things from falling apart.

No, that’s not true, they could have tried harder. They were just tired of trying all the time.

 

 

It’s raining quite heavily, Jaehyun notes, still staring out the window. The sky has darkened, the sound of rain on the roof of the van filters through. Jaehyun sinks a little lower in his seat, rest his head against the glass. He swallows. The image is so clear in his mind, even today.

Taeyong, asleep at the table with their dinner lying cold and untouched in a covered dish. The hem of his trousers were wet, his hair a little damp and rain flecked. It was pouring that night, too, the sound of rain against windowpanes, too loud in that silent apartment. He quietly pulled out a chair facing Taeyong, sat down, put his head in his hands and watched him sleep. He thought, about them, the two of them, about dancing with Taeyong ten feet from where they were sitting. About making love to him right there on the couch in the next room, about having dinner, so many dinners and lunches and breakfasts here at this table, wide awake and looking right at each other, bright, happy, not like this.

This meant they had made plans again, dinner plans this time, and one of them fell short, Jaehyun this time. A week ago it was lunch, and it was Taeyong who got caught up in work and couldn’t leave. Jaehyun waited two hours, lost his appetite, and left. Taeyong called and apologized so many times, but really, he didn’t have to, because three days before that it was Jaehyun again. And the time before that, Taeyong asked if they could meet, and he sounded low, miserable, and Jaehyun couldn’t fucking leave and it broke his heart telling his lover that he couldn’t be there when he needed him.

They hadn’t seen each other for over ten days at that time, and they could have, if they had tried harder, he knows that now. They hadn’t had a proper conversation in ages. Hadn’t made love in so, so long. Sitting there at the table, watching Taeyong sleep, Jaehyun realized they weren’t happy anymore. They were struggling, hanging on by a thread.

Jaehyun thought about Taeyong’s conscription. In just about twenty three days, Taeyong would leave for military service. Two years, no Taeyong.

His chest constricted, and for a second he couldn’t breathe, the sick realization that they wouldn’t make it. There was no way they’d make it out of this together.

“Hyung,” Jaehyun said softly, and Taeyong stirred, sat up slowly, groaning and stretching the stiffness out of his neck.

“You’re back,” he mumbled. “How was work?”

“It was good,” he said quietly. “Tiring.”

The same words, almost rehearsed by that point. Nothing new, nothing real.

Taeyong yawned, scrubbed his eyes and looked up at him. Something like a smile began, but it quickly slipped away.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

Jaehyun shook his head. “I’m sorry I’m so late. You should have eaten.”

He reached out to uncover the dish but Taeyong took his hand, squeezed it and asked again. “Jaehyun, what’s wrong?”

Jaehyun blinked up at him, wondering if he should say it, wishing Taeyong would say it first. How did it come to this, he wondered in those moments. How did this happen? Where did we fuck up, how do I live a life without Taeyong in it?

In a moment of uncomfortable clarity, he realized he’d already been living a life without Taeyong in it for quite a while.

It was like Taeyong read his mind, or saw it in his eyes. His face closed off. He released Jaehyun’s hand.

“You want to end this,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Jaehyun’s silence spoke for him.

Taeyong swallowed. “Okay,” he said.

“Hyung,” Jaehyun said softly. He didn’t know what to say next.

“I suppose it’s too late to ask if we can fix this,” Taeyong said with a tight smile.

Jaehyun blinked back tears. Almost nine years together, and this was what it was reduced to.

“Can we?” Taeyong asked, and his voice broke. “Fix this?”

“You’re leaving,” Jaehyun said.

Taeyong nodded.

“Okay. I understand. Let’s break up,” he said.

Break up, they were breaking up. That sounded too silly to really express this. Taeyong was leaving. They were leaving each other.

“Should I leave?” Taeyong asked.

“It’s raining, hyung,” Jaehyun said.

“I’ll leave,” Taeyong said, ignoring Jaehyun’s words, and he stood, gathering his things, his jacket from where it was draped on the back of a chair, his phone, his wallet, his keys, and Jaehyun watched him preparing to walk out of his life.

Jaehyun stood. It didn’t quite sink in then.

Even with Taeyong at the front door, even when Jaehyun offered an umbrella and Taeyong turned it down, even when Jaehyun crumbled and wrapped his arms around his hyung and buried his face in Taeyong’s neck. Taeyong hesitated just a moment before holding him close, and he knew that both of them were thinking the same things. Wondering at how their bodies fit together.

Taeyong pulled away.

“It’s probably best like this,” he said. Jaehyun blinked back tears, more tears, swallowed down a lump. He was taken by surprise when he felt Taeyong’s hands pushing his hair back. “Change out of these clothes and dry your hair before you sleep. Don’t get sick. Don’t forget dinner…”

Jaehyun kissed him, and it was only a moment before Taeyong kissed him back. That was goodbye. That was I’m sorry, that was take care, I’ll miss you.

Taeyong left that night, left Jaehyun with an empty apartment, with two places set at the dinner table for no fucking reason.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s still pouring when they arrive at the venue. It seems like a company estate of sorts, a tree-lined driveway that stretches forever past the gates to the hall. The building comes into view, large, white, glass paneled, quietly elegant. He’s somewhat impressed.

When the van comes to a stop and his manager hurries over with an umbrella, Jaehyun slides his door open. Almost immediately, a fine spray of rain is blown into his face by a gust of wind. He chuckles, trying to cover his hair and rush to safety, but he isn’t spared the feeling of rainwater in his shoes.

He walks into the building, grimacing at the uncomfortable squelch between his toes.

A young-looking event manager is waiting for him by the door, bowing, greeting him. He bows slightly and smiles.

“Good evening, sir,” she says, an apologetic smile on her face over his wet shoes and rain flecked hair. She gestures for him to follow. “The dressing room is this way. I’m sure you must be very tired after that long drive.”

His mouth moves of its own accord, automatically making small talk about the weather and the drive and he’s not really sure what he’s saying because his mind is drifting. He’s being led up a flight of stairs, and his eyes linger over the massive glass panels overlooking the landing, lingering over the rain hammering down outside, the weak, watery light filtering through, the fluid pools of light and shadow at his feet, refracted through wet glass.

He smiles. It feels terribly nostalgic. Wet feet, wet hair, the uniform grey outside. There are a thousand memories wrapped up in rain.

The day Taeyong kissed him for the first time. Gloomy, rainy, cooped up in the dorm. And then his silly teenage dreams came true. The boy he liked kissed him, and he was ecstatic, he was scared, it felt amazing. One stupid clumsy kiss felt like the world to him.

They were so young.

When they had a free weekend, back when NCT was still together, and they decided to drive down to the beach, just the two of them. They rented a car, and picked the worst, most obscure beach within drivable distance and just left. A thin, misty rain fell that day, a chilly wind, the worst possible weather for a trip to the beach. The sky was grey and the sea was grey and the waves were beautiful and white tipped, the place was quiet, just the two of them dressed in bright blue and green against steel grey. Taeyong held his hand in the desolation of that beach, chased him into the water and splashed around till the saltwater ruined their clothes and their hair and left them sticky and cold.

Jaehyun doesn’t know many things that make him happy the way that memory does.

It was perfect, beautiful, and he remembers stopping on the way back to where they’d parked the car, because Taeyong had seen an ahjussi sitting on the pavement with a little portable stove, making traditional Korean cookies. He still remembers that excited “Jae, look!” and he remembers sitting there on the pavement, laughing the whole time Taeyong sat crouched next to that ahjussi, asking him to make him another, nibbling carefully around the star shapes that were pressed into the centers of those cookies.

When they did make it back to the car, too full of too sweet cookies and something nearing regret, Taeyong pulled him close in the tight confines of the backseat and fell into Jaehyun’s body, left him a gasping, giggling mess, clinging to his hyung, clinging to their happiness, bright blue and green against beautiful stormy grey.

The day Taeyong aegyo-ed him into staying the night when Jaehyun told him he had to leave because he had an early start the next day. This was after they disbanded. It was pouring outside, and Taeyong hugged him and tucked his chin into Jaehyun’s shoulder, quietly humming the tune to Tonight I’m afraid of the dark, till Jaehyun gave up, wrapped his arms around his hyung’s waist and just stayed. They danced together that night. To sad old 10cm songs, and they fell asleep wrapped up in each other, just like they used to, just the way it always was.

The day they broke up. It rained torrentially that day. A miserable backdrop to their hurt and disappointment. Wet feet, wet hair, cold and quiet but for the sound of rain beating down on windows and roofs. The empty place at his dinner table. Their untouched dinner.

The day Taeyong left for the military. All day, Jaehyun kept his phone tightly grasped in his hand, hoping, just hoping Taeyong would call before he left. That he’d see him just once. He didn’t. That night it rained again and Jaehyun sat in his apartment, still clutching his phone, wondering if he should just call. Wet feet, wet hair, cold and quiet. He didn’t call.

 

“Are you ready?”

Jaehyun’s head snaps up and he’s pulled out of his reverie. It’s his manager. He nods.

“Let’s go, then. That girl said the program is starting in five.”

He stands, buttoning his suit jacket, half turning for a quick once over in the mirror before following his manager out. His hair and makeup have been fixed. His feet satisfyingly dry. He falls into step by the other man’s side, setting off begrudgingly down the hall, wondering why the hell he’s doing this. Hosting some fucking charity event for his entertainment company, meeting the who’s who of their city with a smile plastered on his face for hours.

For his career and his relationship, he reminds himself. He does this so he can stay relevant and kiss the right asses, to make sure he doesn’t struggle for a spot in that fickle fucking industry. So he can keep his house in Gangnam and this lifestyle he’s used to. To be sure, that even if he chooses not to work himself to the bone like all the others, even if he takes a day off every week to spend at home, wrapped up in warm, loving arms, his place in the industry won’t be challenged.

“Jaehyun-ah. Are you alright?”

“Of course,” he replies automatically.

“You’re awfully quiet.”

Jaehyun hums absently. His manager drops the subject with a purse of his lips. Jaehyun almost grins at the resignation in the poor man’s face. After years of working together, he has learnt to leave Jung Jaehyun to his musings, because it’s damn near impossible to get through to him at times like these. Only one person could, and that was Taeyong, and his manager knows that, too.

He knows, Jaehyun thinks with an amused smile. In his mind, there’s an image of Taeyong’s naked body in Jaehyun’s arms, curled together under the covers in Jaehyun’s bed all those years ago, way before Taeyong left, when he came over one night. Neither of them expected Jaehyun’s manager to come barging into the house early in the morning. And that poor sop never expected to see what he saw that day, Lee Taeyong asleep in Jung Jaehyun’s arms, their bare shoulders peeking above heavy covers. What a shock that must have been.

That’s when he learnt why Jaehyun was such a private man. Why there were no scandals. Why he never went on dates. He learnt all that over an awkward conversation where the three of them sat down together in Jaehyun’s living room, and Jaehyun took Taeyong’s hand in his, and did his damnedest to make him understand that they were in love. And when he understood that, he did his best to protect them. He never wanted to hear about it, either because it made him uncomfortable, or for the sake of plausible deniability, they never brought it up. But quietly, he did his best to keep them safe from the prying eyes of the world.

That’s when Jaehyun learnt that this man was worth trusting.

And when Taeyong left, and Jaehyun wouldn’t admit that he was hurting, he understood, and he took care of him. Sat with Jaehyun when he was drinking and joked about mundane things so he wouldn’t be drunk and alone, so he wouldn’t have to think about Taeyong.

This man, is a good friend.

 

His eyes scan the room before he goes on stage. It’s a familiar sight. Painfully polished people and carefully coordinated clothes. All gold and diamonds.

It was at one of these that he had met Solbi, a charity event, although it was decidedly of a smaller scale, and back then he was only a small part of the event.

Kang Solbi.

It was two months after he and Taeyong had broken up. He was wound tight, miserable, because he had lost something that had been a part of his every day, for something like a decade. He thought it wouldn’t hurt him the way it did, because he thought the relationship had ended long before it had actually ended, and he thought he could walk away from it relatively unscathed. He was wrong.

He was busy, the busiest he had ever been, and he was glad for it. He was lonely, lonelier than he had ever been. He remembers wishing he could talk to someone, tell them just how much he missed Taeyong, but nobody really knew about their relationship in the first place. Taeil, Ten, maybe, but they were busy with their lives and he was making sure he was busy with his.

But Kang Solbi walked up to him that evening and struck up a conversation. Brazen, considering she was his junior by a few years and they really hadn’t ever spoken before, but she was refreshing. Oddly beautiful, nothing like Taeyong, but still somehow beautiful.

At first it was politeness, but then she piqued his interest, if only as someone to talk to at a suffocating formal event. As the hour dragged on, he found that she made him smile, too.

She was talking to him, and his gaze moved subtly over her, from the brown of her hair to the shape of her eyes and the swell of her mouth, the sharp cut of her collarbones and the elegance with which she carried herself. She spoke well, she seemed intelligent, and she had a pretty smile, nothing like Taeyong’s, but that couldn’t be helped. Taeyong’s smile was perfect.

She was attractive, no doubt, but what caught his attention was the fact that when her phone buzzed and she asked him to excuse her for a moment, when she reached into her bag and retrieved it, when it slipped from her fingers and clattered to the ground, she muttered something really fucking obscene.

_You fucking asslicking…_

And then she froze. And looked up at him like she was trying to gauge whether he had heard or not.

He couldn’t help himself when he chuckled, when his eyes crinkled and his dimples showed despite his determination to be miserable.

She smiled too.

 

Jaehyun finishes his speech and bows. Polite applause breaks out across the room. He smiles, his practiced, dimpled, killer smile, and he steps off stage. There’s a bottle of water being offered to him and he takes it gratefully, pressing the cool surface to his forehead for a few moments before opening it up and drinking it, an attempt to cool himself down. He’s sweating a little despite the air conditioning.

It’s the humidity, he thinks idly. That disgusting stickiness that comes into existence when there’s rain and sun in equal measures. He plasters another smile on his face. He’s usually at least halfway present at events like these, but today, he’s drifting, very far away.

The next time he and Solbi met was a week later at the SBS building, he remembers. She passed him in the hallway and he smiled and bowed, and went on his way, but while he sat outside on one of the numerous stone benches, sipping his coffee during his break, she came by and asked if she could sit there. He hesitated for a moment but he smiled and gestured at the bench, inviting her to take a seat.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. “Are you alright, sunbaenim? You look tired.”

“Yeah, no, it’s been a long day. We’re just reshooting some stuff, the PD is a little…”

“A little?”

Jaehyun grinned. “A little something.”

“You’re working with Youngjae Seonsaengnim this time, right?”

Jaehyun nodded. Oh Youngjae, the PD from hell.

“I worked with him once before,” she hissed a little and tilted her head. “Yes, he’s a little…”

“A little, yes.”

She laughed. She was fun, good fun, tentatively dissing the PD she was working with to see if he’d be okay with it, and when he smiled, she went right ahead and destroyed the poor sop. And it was hilarious. The sun catching brightly on the tips of her lovely brown hair and the deep brown of her eyes and through her laughter and her words he could see that she was a strong, independent, bright, beautiful woman. Some might have said she was brazen, walking up to a senior like that, but he preferred to think she just knew what she wanted.

He knew then that this was heading in a direction very different from normal, appropriate sunbae-hoobae interactions. It was only their second time meeting but a level of comfort was establishing itself that he didn’t think was appropriate. Not yet.

Taeyong had left too much of him behind, too much of him still lingering in Jaehyun’s heart. The man he spent so many years with. He couldn’t let someone else in, not yet, and he knew he wouldn’t be ready for a while. He shouldn’t be ready for a while, because he felt like he owed Taeyong that much.

He hoped she would be patient, he hoped because she seemed lovely, and he was lonely.

 

Jaehyun is shaking someone’s hand. He doesn’t quite know whose hand it is, because all the syllables of the Korean language are blurring together in his head after all the people he’s been introduced to. Kang Su Won Kim Sil Jang Jae Jin Ji Jang who the fuck is this, now.

He’s tired. He’s losing patience. He was never the patient sort. That was always Taeyong. And Solbi, too.

Solbi was patient. Very, very patient. It was eight months after that day at the SBS building that he asked her out, but for some strange reason, she waited. She made do with sharing a meal every now and then whenever he ran into her, always with a couple of other colleagues present. Pretending like he was just being a good sunbae, buying his juniors lunch. She made do with short conversations and looks that began to linger and smiles that softened around the edges, she waited for him to take his time.

But eight months after that day at SBS, his schedule relaxed a little, a little more free time opening up, and that left him lonely in a way he couldn’t fight with a bottle of expensive alcohol. He didn’t know why, but one evening in his empty, silent apartment, one free evening ten months after Taeyong left, when he didn’t know how not to be lonely, he called her and asked if she’d like to go out with him. A date, he said. She laughed and said she’d love to.

 

“Jesus, hyung, how much longer?” Jaehyun whispers to his manager.

“We can leave in ten. Just stick around till that bald man finishes his speech, meet him, then we’ll go.”

Jaehyun nods. He’s relieved. He wants to be home, warm and clean and dressed in pajamas.

He blinks absently, nursing a glass of wine. He doesn’t really know if it’s good wine or not. He’s never been good at these things. It’s all the same to him, just red or white. That’s all he knows.

But Solbi. He still remembers their first date. The things she did to sneak him into her apartment so she could cook for him. He took a bottle of wine with him. Just something his manager bought. He really had no idea what kind it was, choosing to just trust his taste. When he gave it to her, she inspected the bottle, then she poured them a glass each, picked hers up, swirled it around and inhaled the aroma. She took one experimental sip, and then she nodded her approval. And she did it all like it was habit, something she was used to, and as it turned out, she was a bit of a connoisseur.

She tried to teach him that night and many nights after that, but he was determined that it was all hogwash. Oaky my ass, he always told her. It all tastes the same to me. And she’d laugh happily and pour them another glass.

Their first kiss left him warm in a way he missed terribly, happy, somewhat, less alone. When he tucked her hair behind her ear and she laughed at how cheesy the gesture was, and he was so hesitant because he didn’t know how to kiss anyone but Taeyong. But her slender fingers curled around his arms, and she held him and looked at him in a way that left him aching to kiss her so he just leaned in and pressed his mouth to hers. It felt good, all soft and gentle. Her perfume was pleasant, the softness of her hair something he enjoyed feeling against his cheek.

But when he went back home to his empty apartment, their first kiss left him miserable, thinking of Taeyong, wondering how he was, how lonely he was, if he missed him at all.

 

Jaehyun climbs into the van. The bald man has spoken. And that means Jaehyun is free. He sighs in relief, settling into his seat. That suffocating jacket and tie are off. The door slides shut, and his manager climbs into the front. The quiet hum of the engine fills Jaehyun’s ears as he closes his eyes, and then the van moves, and he smiles. Only a couple of hours more, and then he’s home.

Home. Wherever the hell he goes, that’s all he wants at the end of the day. The safety, the comfort, the privacy of his own home.

He remembers the first time he let Solbi into that space. After a few dates, when it just wasn’t enough to kiss anymore, he asked her if she wanted to come over. And she said yes. A woman. For the first time in his life, a woman. For the first time in his life, it was someone who wasn’t Taeyong.

They undressed hesitantly, and he took his time learning her body. He felt too big around her, she felt too delicate, so he kissed her and held her just like that. Like she was delicate, until she told him it was okay to be a little rough, until she opened her mouth for him and it all turned needy and wet and messy. It was too fucking different from everything he had known and loved. Taeyong’s body, all lean and tight and sensitive, so sensitive even after all those years.

She was different. Softer. He didn’t know her like that, he didn’t know how to pleasure her, so he took his time, let her guide him, let her show him what she wanted till she moaned his name over and over and arched against him.

 

The memory is something Jaehyun holds dear. That was the first night in a long time that he felt like he wasn’t alone. When she fell asleep next to him and he woke up early in the morning and pressed little kisses to soft brown hair.

She was exactly what he needed, he remembers. And somehow he was what she wanted. Four months passed like that. She filled the gaps in his life. Filled the silences. Filled the empty space Taeyong left behind.

She was like Taeyong, in a few ways. Clumsy, just like him. But when she dropped things or stubbed her toe, she was quite actively aggressive, muttering curses at the offending object like it was fucking with her on purpose. Quite unlike Taeyong, who’d stand there for a moment staring at the fallen object, or the doorknob he managed to knock his elbow against, staring at it with a quiet disappointment, like he was asking it how it could be so unkind to him. He found them both equally endearing.

Where Taeyong was quiet, she was loud. Where he was a little shy, she was gregarious. She was different.

He told her that, too. That she was a little like Taeyong hyung, his closest hyung in the world. One of the few people he trusted. He never told her just how close they were, never told her he knew Taeyong’s body inside out. But he did tell her he had been with a man before, and he left it to her to connect the dots.

As she grew closer and closer and took up the spaces he had saved for Taeyong, he’d find himself thinking of Taeyong sometimes. Of everything that could have been. Of the dreams they dreamed and the promises they made. You, me, and Ruby the second in a house with big windows and yellow lights. It’s going to be perfect.

Those times, he’d wonder, was he doing the right thing? Was he making a mistake, letting her into his life? He’d wonder, if he should just wait, stay lonely, wait for Taeyong to come back, and ask for another chance. Start over. He could make time now. He had the kind of financial stability and confidence to take on fewer projects and pay attention to his personal life.

But then he’d think of Solbi, of how long she waited for him, and how wonderful she was. Her pretty laughter would fill his life and he’d find himself distracted, already too invested to back out.

 

Jaehyun stares out of the window. It’s past eleven now, and he peers into the darkness but all he can really see are passing streetlights, cones of illumination against a backdrop of dense darkness. Passing cars. The red and yellow glow of their lights. The sky is tinged a kind of red and he can’t see a single star.

He’s getting tired of revisiting these memories, but it’s like he just can’t stop. His own fatigue and the cover of darkness, the wet roads glistening in the harsh glow of streetlights, all of these things are lending themselves to his nostalgia. He knows, the minute he returns to his home and those skinny arms, he’ll be fine, but he just can’t stop thinking.

How silly, he thinks, tired of the melancholy taking root in his chest. He’s reminded for the briefest moment of a passage from Dostoevsky, talking of a woman who had killed herself by jumping off a cliff into a river. Indeed, if this precipice were less picturesque, if there had been in its place a prosaic flat bank, the suicide most likely would not have taken place.

He chuckles again. Nostalgia, melancholy, the beautiful pain of revisiting a life well lived. What a self-indulgent affliction, he thinks. What is he pained by, he wonders. He’s had the love of a beautiful man and a beautiful woman. He has never tasted poverty. What is he pained by?

He remembers the day Taeyong told him he loved him. So clearly. In the afterglow of their first time making love, when his stupid young heart had given itself entirely to this boy/barely a man and trusted him with everything. He had almost cried when Taeyong told him he loved him, but he kept himself together, wrapped his arms tight around his lean body and said it back.

He remembers the day Solbi told him she loved him. About six months after they started going out. In the afterglow of a night of lovemaking, she climbed into his lap, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, kissed and said she loved him. She was so beautiful, and she was everything he needed. But he hesitated, his hands pensively stroking the bare skin of her hips, so she said she understood, she said she could wait. His stomach twisted painfully, and he shook his head. He said it back, and he didn’t know if he meant it.

It didn’t feel like it did with Taeyong. I love you, hyung, whispered into his hair after making love all night. Love you, bye, mumbled hurriedly at the end of phone conversations, hyung, I fucking hate you, grumbled under his breath when Taeyong would burst into song early in the morning, and it was always trot, nothing less. All of that meant the same thing. I love you.

None of it tasted insincere, none of it tasted like compromise.

But he told himself to stop being childish. First loves are like that. You get too involved and you mean things from the bottom of your heart, from an innocence and a naiveté that’s still untouched by the world, and then you get fucked over, fucked up for good. This is what it feels like to be an adult, he told himself that day.

 

If he thinks about it now, that’s where it all began. The day he first found an ache in his chest that just wouldn’t leave. It came to him rarely. Very rarely. Most days he was happy, when Solbi came over and spent nights, he was happy. She really did make him happy. Maybe he’d never love her like he loved Taeyong, he thought back then. But what they had, that was still love.

 

Six months later, she told him she thought they should get married. That was just around the time Taeyong was to return from military service. He looked at her wordlessly.

Somewhere in a corner of his heart he felt a glimmer of hope, of something old being rekindled at the prospect of having Taeyong back in his life. And that left his feelings for Solbi uncertain, and he found himself unable to accept what she had said.

So he told her he wasn’t quite ready yet. She was upset, but she smiled and nodded. He knew she was upset.

He couldn’t believe himself. After so much time with this wonderful person. He couldn’t believe he could treat her like that, like some sort of substitute for Taeyong. It appalled him, so he sat himself down and looked long and hard at his feelings, and he stomped out that small hope of rekindling things with Taeyong. He had been with Solbi. He had made commitments to her. She was in his life now, not Taeyong. Her feelings, her happiness mattered, and he refused to believe he could treat someone like that.

It didn’t matter that he couldn’t quite open himself up to her the way he could with Taeyong. That came from years and years of knowing Taeyong, from forming a relationship when they were so young and naïve and easily trusting. He could work on building that same sort of trust with Solbi.

Besides, he reminded himself. Marriage meant children. And that was something he had always wanted. He pictured it back then, kids who were half him and half Solbi. They’d be beautiful and happy and gregarious little things and that’s what made his decision for him. He wanted that. He wanted to marry her.

So one night, a month later, he took her out to dinner, and he slid a little navy blue velvet covered box over to her when she finished dessert. It was such a fucking cliché, but the smile that lit up her eyes, the ecstatic laugh that filled the space between them filled him with a familiar sort of warmth again. Maybe that was worth something. He smiled softly at her.

“I love you,” he said to her. Almost two years after Taeyong left, maybe he was ready to let someone else in for real. Maybe he meant it.

 

“Hey hyung?” Jaehyun says softly.

Manager hyung hums tiredly from the front seat.

“You ever look back at your life and wonder if you’ve made the right decisions?”

He chuckles. “Jaehyun, I might look old, but I’m only thirty six. That’s way too young for that kind of introspection.”

Jaehyun looks back out of the window. It’s the same sight. Dark and wet.

“Do you?”

Jaehyun’s gaze flicks back and finds his manager’s eyes regarding him curiously through the rear view mirror. He smiles and shrugs.

“Maybe,” he says, noncommittal.

The man sighs again and drops his gaze. That’s another dead end conversation, he realizes. That’s Jaehyun’s idea of opening up.

Jaehyun sinks lower in his seat. Thinking back to the things he did wrong. Things he wishes he could change. A chest full of hurt he could have prevented.

Jaehyun knew the exact date of Taeyong’s return. He pretended like he didn’t because he didn’t know if he was supposed to go see him or not. As a colleague, as a friend, he thought maybe he should see him, but he shook the thought away. But he had to tell him, about Solbi, about their engagement. He didn’t want him to hear it from someone else, because that would be so fucking unkind. His insides twisted painfully and that dull ache in his chest returned.

Jaehyun didn’t have to stress about it for too long, because Taeyong called him. A week after he came back, he called and Jaehyun’s heart stopped when he saw the name on his screen because he didn’t know how to handle this.

He answered hesitantly.

“Hyung,” he said, his voice small.

“Jaehyun, hey. Hi. I just… are you busy?”

God, fuck, shit, Taeyong’s voice. After so fucking long. His heart hammered in his chest, he missed him so much.

“No, hyung, I’m not busy,” Jaehyun said.

He was thinking hard, trying to find a way to tell his ex that he’s getting married soon.

“I uh, I met Taeil hyung yesterday. He said,” Taeyong paused and took a deep breath. “You’re getting married?”

Jaehyun stopped breathing. He closed his eyes. He didn’t know what to say.

“Jaehyun? Is it true?” Taeyong’s voice, his voice, there was hurt there.

Jaehyun screwed his eyes shut tighter.

“Yes,” he said. “I met someone, hyung. She uh… we’re engaged. We haven’t set a date yet or anything.”

“In two years? You met someone, fell in love and you’re engaged?” he said softly. He sounded hurt, incredulous. He paused again, and Jaehyun waited in miserable silence for him to say something. Thick, thick silence, tired and strained and filled with hurt. He took another deep breath.

“I’m sorry, that was out of line,” he said, sounding calmer. Another breath. “Congratulations. Send me a card, okay?”

“Hyung, listen, can we meet? I wanted to tell you in person,” he said desperately. “I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”

“It’s alright, Jaehyun. You don’t have to do that, I’m fine.”

 

He wishes, with his entire heart, that he hadn’t hesitated for so long about calling Taeyong. He wishes Taeyong hadn’t found out like that. He wishes he could have saved him from that pain. That sort of broke any remaining bond they had.

Taeyong was out of his life, entirely gone.

The first time he met Taeyong after his return, was when they ran into each other when he was out having dinner with Solbi. Taeyong was walking past their table when he saw Jaehyun and stopped dead. He blinked and looked away for a moment as if he was considering walking away, and then back at Jaehyun like he decided to just get it over with.

 Jaehyun sort of froze, too. That was the first fucking time he saw him in over two years and it felt like a punch to the stomach. He was handsome, painfully handsome, his hair all black, pushed back roughly, the angles of his cheekbones, his jawline sharper than ever. He was in a fitted suit, the kind Jaehyun always imagined him in, when he used to dream of marrying Taeyong. He blinked, wondering, for the briefest of moments, what it would be like if he were marrying Taeyong and not Solbi. It took his breath away, and then he blinked the thought away.

Jaehyun smiled and stood, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Solbi turning to look at Taeyong and getting to her feet. Taeyong smiled back hesitantly, his eyes flicking briefly towards Solbi and then back to Jaehyun’s face. Jaehyun wished he hadn’t seen the shadow that passed over his beautiful eyes. Beautiful, deep, glimmering brown eyes. His chest hurt.

“Hyung,” Jaehyun said, trying his best to sound normal. “Hi, god it’s been forever. How are you?”

“I have… I’ve been okay,” he said awkwardly, and then he stepped forward, smiled wider and held his hand out to Solbi.

“You must be the fiancée,” he said warmly. Jaehyun’s chest wouldn’t stop hurting.

“Kang Solbi,” she said smiling back. “And you’re the famous Taeyong hyung. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“I am,” Taeyong said with what seemed like a comfortable grin, but Jaehyun could see the strain when he spoke, the buried hurt. “I wish I could say the same, but I’m afraid I’ve been out of the loop for a while now. It’s lovely to finally meet you.”

Jaehyun watched him, and for a moment he wished he didn’t know Taeyong so well, that he didn’t know to notice the way his index picked at the skin of his thumb, the way his shoulders tightened.

“Why don’t you join us for a drink?” Solbi offered, looking over to Jaehyun for confirmation.

Taeyong was quick to turn her down. “I’m really sorry, but I have to be somewhere now. Some other time,” he said.

“I’ll walk you out,” Jaehyun said softly, feeling like he needed to say something more to Taeyong. The hurt in his chest and the guilt in his gut were pushing him to say something.

“No, that’s fine, stay,” Taeyong said.

“I haven’t seen you in so long,” he said softly, looking at Taeyong, willing him to let him in. “Let me walk you out.”

Jaehyung turned to Solbi. “I’ll be back before the dessert gets here, okay?” he said.

She nodded.

Taeyong hesitated for a moment before relenting. He smiled at her again. “Well, congratulations, Solbi-ssi. I’ll get going.”

She smiled and thanked him, and he turned and started walking away. Jaehyun took a few hurried steps to catch up. He knew he wanted to say something, but he couldn’t find the words. I’m sorry? Is that what he wanted to say? They walked side by side in the hallway, dimly lit with warm yellow light, quiet enough for their footsteps to echo. They stood side by side in an empty elevator, nothing exchanged between them.

It was when they were in the parking lot that Taeyong turned to him. He stood there looking like he couldn’t find words, either. After a long moment, he spoke.

“She’s beautiful,” he said, and Jaehyun’s heart broke. He saw Taeyong blinking back tears and he wanted to reach out and cup his cheek and wipe his tears away and hold him. He stayed rooted to the spot.

“It’s a good thing,” Taeyong said. “You can marry her and tell the world you love her, you won’t have to hide anymore.”

Jaehyun felt his eyes stinging.

“Hyung, listen,” he began, but he couldn’t say a word.

“I want you to be happy,” Taeyong said softly.

He didn’t know how or why but he reached out and wrapped his arms around Taeyong, holding him tight. Taeyong’s hands cupped his face and his lips pressed softly to Jaehyun’s forehead.

“You can have kids, start a family and you won’t have to hide. You can be happy, Jaehyun. I want you to be happy,” he said and tried to pretend like he wasn’t about to cry, but Jaehyun saw through everything, and Taeyong knew it. He pulled away from Jaehyun’s embrace and it took everything Jaehyun had not to pull him back.

“I’m sorry, I’m being childish,” he said, clearing his throat and running a hand over his face.

“Taeyong hyung, I’m sorry,” Jaehyun said, and he wasn’t quite sure what he was apologizing for.

“Shut up, go back inside,” he said with a small smile.

 

Jaehyun went back into the restaurant, pulled his chair and sat down with an apologetic smile. His dessert had arrived, and had started to melt.

“You took forever,” Solbi said.

“Sorry, we were just catching up,” he replied with a ghost of a smile. His chest wouldn’t stop hurting.

She regarded him carefully for a moment. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” he asked with a chuckle.

 

Taeyong didn’t come to the wedding. Jaehyun looked for him, looked past Taeil’s shoulder, when the older embraced him and congratulated him, hoping he’d see Taeyong standing there behind him. He waited, and strained his eyes, and craned his neck but he couldn’t see that familiar face anywhere. He remembers hoping, he remembers being disappointed.

He remembers picturing himself in Taeyong’s shoes. Picturing Taeyong getting married to someone else, and him having to sit there at his wedding and smile and be happy for him. It left him feeling sick, faint, and in that moment he understood that Taeyong wouldn’t come. In that moment he let his gaze drop to the ground and he let himself give up.

 

Solbi was beautiful that day. Her hands clasped in his as they stood at the altar, her long, slim fingers tightening around his when they said their vows, her lovely smile, the brown of her hair, the shape of her eyes and the sharp cut of her collarbones, he tried to make sure those would be the only things he’d remember about that day. Not Taeyong’s conspicuous absence. Not Taeyong.

Clearly, he had failed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys I'm so sorry I haven't really had the time to reply to all your comments. But please know that all your kudos and comments are greatly appreciated. Seriously, thank you so much <3  
> And have a great year :)


	3. Chapter 3

 

They’re getting close to Seoul, Jaehyun realizes. The roads are somewhat familiar now. They’re slowing down, nearing a tollbooth and it’s the same red glare in Jaehyun’s eyes from the car in front of theirs. He’s trying to take in useless details, distract himself from these memories. The faded orange stripes of the barricade, the traffic cones piled chaotically by the side of the road, the sudden brightness of everything around the tollbooth.

The van slides past, and Jaehyun’s counting the minutes till he gets home. He’s rather amused with himself. At how domestic he’s become.

It all began in the first year of being married to Solbi. It was wonderful, he remembers. Having someone to come home to. Having someone to fall asleep beside. It felt like the life he always wanted but was too afraid to live. With Taeyong, he was afraid of being found out, of not being understood, of being humiliated and ostracized and having his career taken right out of his hands.

But Solbi, she was safe. She was what home was supposed to feel like.

And the ache in his chest became something of a friend.

 

They’re a little past the tollbooth when he feels that they’re slowing down. He looks up inquiringly.

“We need gas. And I need to pee,” his manager says, pulling up at a gas station. Jaehyun nods.

He’s waiting patiently for the man to return for a moment or two. And then he decides he’d rather get out of the van. Get some air, stretch his legs. He slides his door open and jumps out. He stretches the stiffness out of his joints, relishing the cool, fresh air, the crunch of his shoes on wet gravel.

He takes a few steps to the side, and he notices a small stall to the side of the gas station. He squints at it, trying to see what they’re selling. From where he’s standing he can smell the sweet smell of boiling sugar and fried food and his stomach growls. He remembers all that Golbaengi muchim he was craving earlier that day, and how that plan didn’t quite work out because who the fuck has the time for that. Instead, he made do with a granola bar and some disgustingly healthy green concoction he’s been forced to drink every day in the name of healthy living and other such new age atrocities.

He grits his teeth, trying to resist the urge to go over and buy something deep fried and deeply unhealthy, but his stomach growls again, and he grins. Can’t be helped, he thinks. He’s just too hungry.

He walks over, grins at the old man at the counter and unapologetically asks for dwigim. He can tell the man recognizes him from TV, he gathers from the awkward way he fiddles about and cast sidelong glances at him while packing up all the food he had asked for, but neither of them say anything, choosing to end the encounter with a few more smiles than what would be normal. Like an acknowledgment of sorts.

He trudges back to the van with his hands full of Dalgona and dwigim wrapped in brown paper. Dwigim for him, dalgona to take home. His manager shoots him a look, and Jaehyun shrugs and scrunches up his face as if to say hey, I know, just let it go this one time.

The man chuckles at his childishness, letting it slide, maybe because of how quiet Jaehyun has been all day, since he met Taeil. He lets it slide, because he thinks maybe he needs a break today. Instead, he reaches over and takes the Dalgona he’s being offered, and he makes quick work of it.

“Jesus, slow down,” Jaehyun mumbles, his mouth full of Dwigim. “You practically inhaled that.”

“Hey, I’m not the one on a diet here,” he shoots back.

Jaehyun chuckles, and they slip into silence.

“Is everything okay at home?” he asks all of a sudden.

Jaehyun blinks at him. It’s quite unlike him to ask about Jaehyun’s personal affairs. Talking about it usually makes him uncomfortable, so he just doesn’t ask. This must mean he’s really concerned, Jaehyun thinks. He smiles at the gesture.

“Everything’s okay, hyung,” he says. “I’ve just been thinking about a lot of things I did.”

“Things you did?”

“People I hurt,” he muses, and then he shakes his head dismissively. “I’ve just been thinking.”

There’s another silence.

“It’s all a part of growing older, Jaehyun. You have to hurt someone, you have to love someone, you have to be selfish and get what you want, you have to make sacrifices and give it up sometimes,” he says hesitantly. “If you’re not doing that, you’re not living right.”

Jaehyun smiles. He chews on his dwigim for a moment, something to give him time to figure out how to respond to that. He’s right. Hyunseung is talking about exactly what he’s thinking about, and he doesn’t necessarily want to talk about it yet. So he chooses to dismiss it. He swallows thickly.

“You should write a book,” he says.

“I know, I’m wasting my talent on you.”

They laugh, and Jaehyun feels better. He’s thankful for this man, his manager, his friend.

 

 

They get back into the van in a few minutes. It has started to drizzle again, Jaehyun notes. His skin is lit up a golden yellow every time a car drives past, golden yellow dotted with shadows from his rain flecked window. He closes his eyes. Every time he drives back from his schedule at this time, he finds himself thinking of the same thing. The same terrifying moments of his life replaying in his head till he silences them with happier thoughts.

They were driving back from a solo concert in Busan and Jaehyun was idly scrolling through his SNS, painfully bored, too tired to fall asleep.

At that time it had been over a year and a half since he got married. Over a year and a half since Taeyong came back. Over three years since they broke up. His life with Solbi had reached a comfortable equilibrium. A kind of routine that made him happy to go back to, over and over.

He was sitting there, scrolling through his phone when he saw it. An article from some tabloid. He remembers the way his entire body froze.

Real footage of Lee Taeyong’s stage accident.

It must be fake, he remembers thinking. It must be nothing. It must be nothing at all, he thought when he clicked the link. But there it was, Taeyong on stage, suspended from wires. His latest song, the performances were insane. He had heard about it, the wires, the tricks. He hadn’t seen it yet.

He watched the performance. It was beautiful, Taeyong was brilliant, beautiful, amazing to watch. Nothing bad was happening, and just as his body began to relax, just as he was about to dismiss it, he saw it happening. He saw one wire come loose, he saw Taeyong’s slender body veering off to the side, ramming into the scaffolding, plummeting to the ground, and his heart stopped. He couldn’t catch his breath. He felt the fall in his own body, he stared at the screen in shock, filtering out the screaming fans, the gasping, the whispering, willing Taeyong to move, willing him to just do something, anything, but he stayed an unmoving heap at the side of the stage while staff and medics swarmed around him. The video stopped.

“No,” Jaehyun breathed. He scrolled through the attached article frantically. How was he? What the hell happened? Where was he?

He remembers finding nothing important, nothing substantial, just descriptions and fan accounts telling him it had happened hours ago, and he needed to know where the hell Taeyong was. He needed to be there.

He dialed his number, over and over and nobody answered. He called Taeyong’s manager. Nobody answered.

“Hyunseung hyung,” he said to his manager, trying his best to sound calm. “Taeyong hyung is hurt. I need to find him, hyung, please find out where he is.”

“What are you talking about?” his manager asked, surprised by Jaehyun’s sudden agitation and once again, Jaehyun tried his best to explain, to show him the article and the video.

“Take me to him, please,” he said, feeling helpless, terrified. And Hyunseung understood.

“Alright, calm down,” he said. “I’ll make a few phone calls.”

An hour later, when they finally reached the outskirts of Seoul, they found out which hospital Taeyong had been taken to.

“He’s okay, Jaehyun. He wasn’t hurt too badly,” Hyunseung told him, but Jaehyun shook his head and said he needed to see him first. They drove directly there.

Jaehyun walked through the hallways, and it took everything he had not to run, and if he were less worried, the cliché of the whole situation would have amused him. But he was terrified. All he needed was to see Taeyong.

He found the room, found Taeyong’s manager outside. He nodded at him, quietly sliding the door open. The room was dark, and he still remembers the clinical smell of it, his heart hammering in his chest.

“Hyung?” he said softly.

Taeyong stirred, and Jaehyun walked up to him.

“Hyung, it’s me,” he said.

“Jaehyun,” Taeyong murmured, somewhat in a daze, and then he grinned. “Jaehyunnie, I’m so high right now.”

Jaehyun sat down carefully next to Taeyong on the bed.

“…pain meds are fucked up,” Taeyong drawled.

Jaehyun chuckled, gently carding his fingers through the other’s hair and Taeyong sighed.

“Jae, baby, what took you so long?” Taeyong said softly, the drugged out grin being replaced by something softer, his eyes fluttering closed, struggling to stay open.

“Hyung?” Jaehyun asked, shocked, because Taeyong hadn’t spoken to him like that in years.

Taeyong blinked up at him, and the smile faded. “Sorry, I just… I was half asleep, I didn’t know what I was saying.”

Jaehyun smiled. “For a second I thought you hit your head,” he said with a laugh, determined not to make it awkward.

Taeyong grinned, too. “I did hit my head. It’s all fine, though. They did a CT and a bunch of irritating tests. I’m pretty much fine.”

“That’s good,” Jaehyun said, still running his fingers through Taeyong’s hair.

“Dinner?” he asked.

“I just ate.”

Jaehyun nodded, and they slipped into a heavy sort of silence. They hadn’t been alone with each other since before Jaehyun got married. And all of a sudden they were thrown together into this situation, each vulnerable in their own way.

“It’s good to see you,” Taeyong said softly.

“I was so scared, hyung,” Jaehyun murmured. “I saw some article and there was a video of the whole thing. You fell so hard, God, I thought…”

“I’m okay, though. It’s just my leg. I fucked it up pretty bad, but it could have been a lot worse.”

“They said you broke your femur,” he said.

Taeyong nodded. “They’ve operated already. They stuck a titanium rod in there. I don’t know. I feel like wolverine.”

Jaehyun laughed and shook his head. “How long till it heals?”

“Six months, give or take,” he said. “I’m stuck here for a while. They said they want to monitor the progress and control the weight bearing and the pain and then some medical stuff I didn’t understand.”

Jaehyun remembers the way that stuck in his chest. Control the pain, God, he must be in so much pain, he thought. Taeyong read him like he always did, and he spoke softly.

“I’m okay, Jaehyun,” he said.

“You’re okay,” Jaehyun repeated, more for his own benefit than Taeyong’s. And then, he didn’t know what happened. Maybe it was the sound of Taeyong’s voice, maybe it was the familiarity of that Jae, baby, maybe it was the fact that his hyung was alright, after all that worrying, Taeyong was not seriously hurt. He found his body slumping onto Taeyong’s, his head resting on Taeyong’s chest, his arm wrapping around Taeyong’s torso. Taeyong’s breath hitched for a moment, and then he held Jaehyun close, one hand running soothingly through his hair.

“You’re okay,” Jaehyun said again, and he couldn’t hold a little hiccup down, couldn’t keep his voice from breaking. He blinked back tears of sheer relief.

“Are you crying?” Taeyong said, clearly amused. Jaehyun didn’t say a word, just staying on Taeyong’s chest, and Taeyong cooed softly at him, chuckling a little at Jaehyun’s sweetness.

“Hey, shh,” Taeyong said. “I’m fine. I just broke my leg. That’s all. I’m good.”

Jaehyun only straightened up again when he felt more in control of himself. He sniffled and ran a hand over his face, embarrassment slightly overtaking relief at that point, and he smiled sheepishly.

Taeyong couldn’t stop laughing.

“Sorry,” he said to Taeyong with the same sheepish smile, and he knew Taeyong understood where that came from, understood the fear and the helplessness he felt when he saw that happening to someone he had once loved, when he couldn’t get in touch with anyone, when he didn’t know how bad it was and he couldn’t rest easy till he saw that he was alright.

“It’s alright,” he replied. “I’m just glad you came.”

How could I stay away, Jaehyun thought, absently staring at the crisp white sheets, and Taeyong smiled, all bright and happy, that perfect smile he remembered from all his best years, that perfect smile from the boy of his dreams. His chest tightened painfully.

“How are you, Jaehyun?”

“I’m not the one in a hospital bed, hyung,” he replied.

“How’s your wife?”

“She’s good.”

Another silence, and this time Jaehyun felt the awkwardness, the distance. His fears had been allayed, his vulnerability buried. It was time to lay down boundaries again, to step back into their current roles. This wasn’t his place anymore. He came because his hyung, his companion through his best years, someone who had loved him and guided him through his lowest moments, was hurt. He came out of respect, out of concern. Now he had to leave.

“I should get going, hyung,” Jaehyun said softly. “Call me if you need anything, okay? Anything at all. Even if it’s just chicken soup.”

Taeyong nodded and pulled him into half a hug, and Jaehyun let himself rest his forehead against Taeyong’s for the briefest of moments, to cup his face and kiss his cheek, and tell him he’s so fucking glad he’s alright.

And then the moment had to end. Jaehyun spoke to the doctor, just to make sure Taeyong was really alright. He left his personal number with Taeyong’s manager, just in case they needed anything. And when he was satisfied that there was nothing more he could do there, he went outside, got back into the van and went home to his wife.

On the drive home, he remembered everything the doctor said. One segmental fracture of the femur. It’s going to take months to heal completely. Months of no dancing, no performing, almost one year away from the industry. He remembered the stark emptiness of Taeyong’s hospital room. Where was his family? Of course they weren’t there. He was alone. He must have been miserable, but he didn’t let on, he smiled and laughed and said it was no big deal, but he must have been miserable, he thought.

He considered going back, the memory of that soft little Jae, baby, filling his mind with something cottony. He wanted to go back and make sure Taeyong wasn’t alone when he needed someone the most, and then he remembered Solbi.

He had to go home to his wife.

 

Jaehyun closes his eyes. He wants that horrible memory gone from behind his eyes, but he can’t help himself. The memory of that hour spent in the van, so far away from Taeyong, the image of that unmoving body, all those fan accounts detailing the way the medics picked him up like a rag doll and put him on a stretcher, and that’s where the information stopped. He remembers thinking, hesitant, too afraid to think it, but for just about an hour that night, he imagined a world without Taeyong and it shook him down to his bones.

When he went back home from the hospital, Solbi was already asleep. He went straight into their bedroom, didn’t bother with changing, just slid into bed beside her and wrapped his arms tight around her. He needed her comfort, her warmth, her bright smile.

“Jae?” she mumbled sleepily and he just held her tighter and hid his face in her neck.

“You okay?” she asked, sliding her hand into his hair and scratching lightly at his scalp.

He shook his head and told her about the accident, and she sat up hurriedly.

“That’s awful,” she said. “Are you okay? You look terrible.”

“I got scared,” he told her honestly. “I thought I’d lost him.”

She blinked at him, chewing on her lower lip pensively.

“You care about him,” she said.

“We were close,” he replied. “He means a lot to me. The time we spent together, it means a lot to me.”

“How come you don’t talk anymore?”

He took a moment to figure out how to answer that.

“Circumstances,” he said. “He left.”

“For military service?”

Jaehyun nodded.

“That’s hardly his fault.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s… hard to explain. We were busy, and we sort of drifted apart and then he left so we couldn’t fix it.”

“Maybe you could fix it now?” she suggested carefully. “I mean… whatever happened between you, it sounds more complicated than what you’re telling me. But it seems like he needs someone right now? You said his family wasn’t there, either. Maybe he could use a friend?”

“Solbi, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” she challenged.

“I just don’t,” he replied. “I mean if he needs something, I’m more than happy to help. But I don’t think… we can’t really fix things.”

“Jaehyun?” Solbi said softly, and Jaehyun hummed. “Maybe you could use a friend, too.”

Jaehyun smiled and pulled her close.

“I have you,” Jaehyun replied. “That’s enough for me.”

 

Jaehyun visited Taeyong a couple of times in the hospital. Short visits, just to see how he was doing, if he needed any help. He made sure they never lasted very long. One of those visits, he ran into Donghyuck and Yuta and had dinner with them.

Things were awkward between them for a little while, because they sort of knew about his history with Taeyong. Sort of, nothing was ever officially confirmed, but after years working together, they had gathered that Jaehyun and Taeyong shared something special. After all those nights Taeyong slept in Jaehyun’s bed, and all those soft smiles and subtle glances, wandering hands that were caught more than once and dismissed with various excuses (he had something in his eye, there was a bug on his thigh, he was nervous so I held his hand), and muffled moans that were heard through thin bedroom walls, they’d be idiots not to know that they were together.

And knowing all that, knowing that Jaehyun was married to someone else now, having attended the wedding and noted Taeyong’s absence, things were awkward.

It dissipated in a while, and things returned to normal, and Jaehyun went home after dinner feeling utterly bullied by Yuta and Donghyuck’s quick witted jibes. It felt good, felt familiar, and when Jaehyun went home that night, he told Solbi all about it with a happy nostalgic grin.

 

He stopped visiting when Taeyong was discharged from the hospital. He thought about him, almost every night before he fell asleep, he spared a few minutes to hope Taeyong was feeling better. But he decided to stay away. He’d do what was required if Taeyong needed help, he decided.

A month or so passed, and Jaehyun got a phone call from Taeyong’s manager.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you, but I’m afraid I’m sick and I can’t go over to Taeyong’s place tonight,” he said. “He doesn’t really have anyone to take care of him, and I didn’t know who to call.”

“What can I do?” Jaehyun asked, his chest hurting for his hyung.

“Someone just needs to check on him once because he can’t really get out of bed, yet. And he never tells me even if he needs something.”

“Still? He’s not getting better?” he asked, worried.

“I don’t know. It’s taking longer than expected. He can manage to move around with crutches for a bit, but then his leg starts hurting and he has to lie down again. The physiotherapist said it would take time, that this type of fracture is a bit tricky.”

“I’ll check on him,” Jaehyun said.

“Thank you so much,” the manager said. “I’ll send you the address.”

“Isn’t it that place near the hospital?”

“No, no, he moved. He lives in Gangnam, now.”

Jaehyun frowned. “Since when?”

“It’s been years. He moved just before he left for service.”

“Oh,” Jaehyun said, and he refrained from saying but he never told me. “Please send the address.”

 

Jaehyun stood in front of Taeyong’s apartment, keying in the password he had received along with the address. How odd, he thought. Taeyong moved just after they broke up, and he had never mentioned anything about moving to Jaehyun.

The door opened and Jaehyun let himself in. The apartment was dark, unfamiliar, but for a moment he felt like he had stepped back a few years, to those days he used to go over to Taeyong’s place for dinner after long days at work, to those days they were in love.

“Hyung?” he called out, taking his shoes off and wearing house slippers.

There was no reply, so Jaehyun walked further in. He knocked on a closed door, assuming that was Taeyong’s bedroom. He let himself in quietly, and found Taeyong asleep in his bed, sheets bundled up all around him, his room in an uncharacteristic mess.

“Hyung?” he said softly, sitting down next to Taeyong. He stirred.

“Jaehyun?” he said, shifting to sit up.

“Yeah,” Jaehyun replied with a soft smile. “I came to check on you.”

“How did you come in?”

“Your manager sent me the lock code.”

“Did my manager send you, too?”

Jaehyun nodded. “Did you have dinner?”

“No, but I’m not hungry.”

“You should eat, hyung,” Jaehyun began, but Taeyong cut him off.

“I’m fine, Jae, I don’t need anything. You don’t have to stick around,” Taeyong said, but there was something about the way his eyes wouldn’t quite meet Jaehyun’s, something in that barely there hostility that made him want to stay.

Jaehyun leaned back, his gaze sweeping across the room for a second, and he took in everything. Clothes everywhere. The sheets looked like they hadn’t been changed in forever, a thin layer of dust over the nightstand, and the familiar scent of Taeyong’s cologne was masked by something musty, like stagnant air.

“Really, Jaehyun. I’m fine,” Taeyong said.

“I know,” Jaehyun said, but he didn’t believe it. He turned his gaze to his hyung, his handsome face, the doe eyes that could melt you down and the jawline that could cut. But all he found there was a tired ghost of a man, no evidence of the smile he loved, nothing of that deep glimmer in his eyes, nothing of that glowing skin. His chest was too tight, the realization that his hyung was in a bad place sinking in slowly. He had been in a bad place for a while now, and Jaehyun hadn’t known, hadn’t done a thing about it.

“I’m actually free now, hyung,” Jaehyun said and he didn’t know why he said it. “I thought we could… hang out? Maybe? Just, you know, a beer, some takeout, a movie?”

“I...” Taeyong hesitated.

“Don’t say no,” Jaehyun said gently.

He watched Taeyong pick at his blanket for a moment, and he leaned in closer. “Don’t say no,” he said again with a smile, and Taeyong looked at him long and hard before he nodded.

“I can’t drink,” he said. “Medication.”

“Okay,” Jaehyun said happily. “No beer, that’s cool. I’ll be right back. I’ll figure out the food part. Meanwhile, you could figure out which movie to watch?”

Taeyong nodded again, a little bit of a smile on the corner of his lips.

Jaehyun left the room, called his manager and told him he’d be a while.

“Hyung, he’s a mess,” he said softly. “I can’t leave. He… needs someone. He needs me.”

That night, they sat there in Taeyong’s bed, right in the middle of the mess of Taeyong’s room, and ate jjajangmyeon and japchae and Taeyong gave Jaehyun all his bell peppers because he positively hated them, and Jaehyun picked out the ones he had missed. It was habit, routine, just the way it always was. They watched the movie in almost complete silence, and conversation was a little forced but that was to be expected. They hadn’t spent that much time together in forever.

But at the end of dinner, when Jaehyun cleaned up a little around Taeyong and said he’d have to leave, Taeyong smiled at him. Perhaps it was politeness, perhaps it was gratitude, Jaehyun didn’t know.

 

When he went to bed with Solbi, late that night, he held her close and told her he went to see Taeyong.

“How is he?” she asked.

“He seems… unhappy,” he said.

She reached out and rubbed soothing circles on his chest.

“I think I’ll go back tomorrow,” he said to her. “I think maybe you’re right. Maybe he could use a friend right now.”

She smiled at him, leaning up to kiss him softly. “I’m always right,” she whispered, and Jaehyun chuckled, rolling them over and deepening the kiss.

“What about that time we went to Jeju and you swore oranges would be in season in May?”

“Except that one time,” she said, kissing him some more.

“And that other time you swore it was one cup of sugar for every cup of water in…”

“And that other time,” she said scrunching up her nose.

“And then there was that…”

“Okay, fine, I’m usually right,” she said, exasperated, and Jaehyun chuckled against her lips, kissing her deeper and deeper till she pulled him down on top of her and slid her hand into his hair and let him trail kisses down her body and open her up with his tongue and his fingers and let him lose himself in her body.

They fell asleep, warm and tired, wrapped up in each other’s arms, exchanging blissful little sweet nothings to dispel the hurt in Jaehyun’s chest.

 

A phone vibrates, too loud in the quiet car, and Jaehyun opens his eyes. Hyunseung silences it quickly, but only a minute or so passes before it begins again.

“Hyung, I’m not sleeping or anything,” Jaehyun says. “You can answer it.”

“I don’t think I want to,” Hyunseung says and Jaehyun raises an eyebrow at him.

“It’s my wife,” Hyunseung explains.

“Is everything okay?” Jaehyun asks.

There’s a moment of hesitation, long enough for Jaehyun to understand it’s a sensitive subject. Just long enough to sugarcoat a bitter truth.

“We’re having a little bit of a disagreement,” Hyunseung says.

“About?”

“She wants me to come home earlier, to spend time with the kids,” Hyunseung says hesitantly. “Don’t get me wrong, I understand that’s not possible…”

“You should listen to her,” Jaehyun says pensively.

“Jaehyun… if I work shorter hours, who’s going to take care of your ugly mug?”

“I can take care of myself, hyung,” Jaehyun says. “I could ask for another manager? For events that could run late or whatever.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Hyunseung says. “Look, Jaehyun, I’m not complaining or anything. I’m fine with the hours I work, and my wife… she’ll learn to be fine with it.”

“She shouldn’t have to, hyung,” Jaehyun says. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were having a hard time. Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

Hyunseung’s eyes find Jaehyun’s in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know, I just… it felt wrong to ask,” he says. Jaehyun thinks he sees something like pity there, but Hyunseung speaks again, a clarification of sorts.

“This is the job, these are the hours,” he says quickly. “I don’t want to ask for special treatment.”

“Hyung,” Jaehyun says. “Be quiet. If you need to spend time with your family, take time. Be a good dad to your kids, hyung, I know you’re amazing with them. Don’t worry about anything. The pay will stay the same, everything will stay the same.”

“Jaehyun, really,” Hyunseung begins, and Jaehyun cuts him off.

“You’ve done so much for me, hyung. This is the least I can do for you,” he says. “And I wish you’d talk to me comfortably. I don’t want the kids to grow up hating uncle Jaehyun.”

Hyunseung chuckles. “They’d never hate you. You’re amazing with them, too.”

Jaehyun grins.

A few more moments pass in silence. Jaehyun breathes slow and deliberate, and he keeps the smile on his face. He swears his chest feels too tight.

“Thank you, Jaehyun,” Hyunseung says. “You’re a good friend.”

Jaehyun smiles.

“And I wish you’d talk to me, too.”

Jaehyun clears his throat, sinks lower in his seat, and closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the support! I love reading you comments <3  
> And I'm sorry I'm drowning you guys in angst lol. <3 <3


	4. Chapter 4

Jaehyun went back to Taeyong’s place the next day. Taeyong looked up at him from his bed like he was surprised to see him, despite the fact that Jaehyun told him he’d back.

“Hey hyung, have you eaten?” he asked. Taeyong shook his head, sitting up.

“That’s good, because I brought dinner,” Jaehyun said, handing Taeyong his dinner. He sat down next to him on the bed but found himself sitting on a couple of dirty t shirts. He got up, tried to clear out a space for him to sit, threw some used clothes to the side, tried to move the blanket aside, a book, a pen, some loose change, a couple of candy wrappers, and then he stopped. He knew Taeyong was watching him trying to clean up. He looked up at him.

“Sorry,” Taeyong said, picking at a loose thread in his pajamas. “About the mess.”

Jaehyun smiled. “Don’t worry about it, hyung. You want to clean up a little and then start on dinner?” he suggested gently.

“I’ll do it,” Taeyong said.

“I can help,” Jaehyun said, but Taeyong shook his head.

“Stop,” he said tiredly. “Just… go home. I’ll clean up. You don’t have to do this.”

Jaehyun eyed him carefully. “Why can’t you just ask for help?”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Yes you do. You need my help, and I want to help you. This is not okay, hyung,” he said, gesturing to the room.

“I know it’s not okay, but it’s my fucking life, Jaehyun, and I don’t see how it’s any of your business how I choose to live it,” Taeyong snapped.

“You’re unhappy…”

“I am.”

“I can’t watch this happening to you, hyung.”

“Then don’t. Go home.”

“Hyung, do you really expect me not to care about you?”

“Yes,” Taeyong said and Jaehyun stared at him open mouthed while Taeyong glowered at the wall. He didn’t know what to say. A few moments passed and Taeyong sighed, his shoulders relaxed.

“No,” he said, defeated. “I know you care. I know you just want to help. I’m sorry.”

Jaehyun leaned forward and hugged him tight.

 

 

Jaehyun’s heart hums contentedly when he sees the familiar green overhead sign that points the way to Gimpo Airport. Only another hour or so and he’d be home.

“Hyung?” he says with a stupid grin. “You want to hear something amazing?”

“Sure,” Hyunseung says.

“Tomorrow is Tuesday.”

Hyunseung chuckles. “Any plans?”

“Yeah, I’m going to stay in bed till late afternoon and eat whatever the hell I want and not work out and not answer any calls and have a lot of sex…”

“Okay then,” Hyunseung interjects before Jaehyun can get any more graphic than that. “Same as usual.”

Jaehyun grins at his manager’s embarrassment. “What are you going to do?” he asks.

“A date with the wife, maybe. I might have to apologize now that my boss is on her side, too.”

“You might have to,” Jaehyun says, amused.

He leans back, and his whole body is filled with an almost physical gratitude for Tuesdays. The one day of the week he takes a break. Makes up for the rest of the week. One beautiful day he gets to spend being lazy and happy with the love of his life.

“Hey hyung, can you pass me the Dalgona?” Jaehyun says, pointing at the brown paper bag on the dashboard.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You’re on a diet.”

“But it’s almost Tuesday!”

“Almost.”

“…mean,” Jaehyun grumbles under his breath, settling back into his seat, crossing his arms and closing his eyes and ignoring his manager’s amused laughter. He really should be used to it by now, considering he’s been on a diet for as long as he can remember. He’s always had the body type that gains weight in the blink of an eye. But truly, of all the things he loves and holds dear in his life, nothing quite parallels his love for food.

In his mind there’s an image of Solbi shaking her head solemnly, that one night she found him in the kitchen, silently working his way through a tub of ice cream, sitting alone in the dark. He smiles at the memory. He remembers the way he froze, caught in the act, looking up at her with the widest, wettest, most beseeching eyes. She burst into laughter and gently took the ice cream away from him.

“But, baby, ice cream,” he argued.

“But, baby, diet,” she reminded him gently, pulling him into their bedroom and whispering in his ear, all the things he could do to burn all those calories.

And then there was Taeyong. All those years ago, when they were still in NCT, when all those crazy diets and work outs and performances and practices were wearing Jaehyun down. That one day when he checked his weight and realized he hadn’t lost anything and he almost broke down because he was so tired and so hungry and just so done. Taeyong went out, bought milkshakes and fries and terrible things, pulled him quietly into the kitchen in the middle of the night, sat him down, kissed him breathless and told him to just eat. One pound too heavy, two, three, ten, it didn’t matter.

“Just eat, Jae,” he told him, and sat up the whole night with him, and both of them worked their way through unhealthy amounts of junk food, laughing and talking and just before they fell asleep, Taeyong spoke softly.

“You’ll always be the sexiest piece of ass I have ever seen,” he said, and Jaehyun snorted.

“You’re a real poet, hyung,” he said, pulling Taeyong close and chuckling into his skin.

“Shut up. You love me,” Taeyong mumbled, half asleep.

“I do,” Jaehyun whispered.

Jaehyun smiles. They gave him so much, he realizes, both supporting him in their own way, both so beautiful.

 

That was half the reason he went to Taeyong’s house every day after the accident. He owed so much to his hyung. He couldn’t sit back and watch as he slipped away from the world. He couldn’t imagine how that felt, being in pain, being alone, nothing to do all day, nobody to talk to, nobody to ask you how you’re doing except some manager who gets paid to care. He’d seen depression before, and he knew that circumstances like those would only help his hyung drown.

He had decided he wouldn’t let that happen.

Every night after work, he stopped by Taeyong’s place, and they had dinner together.

Sometime at the end of the first week, he went over to Taeyong’s, handed him a box from the paper bag he was carrying. It was from one of Taeyong’s favorite restuarants. “Dinner is served,” he said settling down on Taeyong’s bed, his clean bed with freshly laundered sheets that Jaehyun had changed for him the previous night, in his clean room, where Jaehyun had sat folding clothes and vacuuming the night before that.

“How was your day?” he asked.

Taeyong stared at the disposable box, black corrugated plastic and a see through lid, a pretty pink fillet of grilled salmon peeking through. He looked up at Jaehyun.

“Go home, Jaehyun,” he said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?” Jaehyun asked, reaching into the bag for his own dinner.

“Take care of me. I’m fine. My manager will be back soon and I can take care of myself till then.”

Jaehyun frowned, pulling the lid off his little box, poking at it with his chopsticks. “Your manager said he’d come back today. I told him not to bother, because I was coming to check on you anyway. Because I wanted to.”

“You really don’t have to.”

“You’re not hearing me, hyung. I want to,” Jaehyun said, a finality in his voice that he knew Taeyong remembered from all their fights all those years ago. All those fights Jaehyun won, with that same finality in his voice that said he would not entertain any more arguments.

“But…”

“Hyung.”

“Alright,” Taeyong said, giving up, and Jaehyun smiled. At least he wasn’t arguing anymore.

“How was your day?” Jaehyun tried again.

“I…” Taeyong trailed off. “It was okay.”

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I um… slept, quite a bit,” Taeyong said. Jaehyun heard the buried traces of embarrassment. His hyung, the man who always worked too hard for his own good, his day filled to the brim with activity, a Type A personality through and through. He had slept through the day, slept through the week, the past month.

“That’s good, you need to rest,” Jaehyun said.

Taeyong nodded, still staring at the box in his lap. Jaehyun handed him a pair of chopsticks, and Taeyong took it hesitantly.

“How was yours?” Taeyong asked softly, carefully avoiding Jaehyun’s gaze, busying himself with getting the box open.

“Long,” Jaehyun said, eager to share with his hyung what had happened earlier that day. “You remember that kid from our MV?”

“Which one?”

“Hyung, the one,” Jaehyun said, chewing on a piece of squid. “From our MV.”

“That narrows it down,” Taeyong said, taking a bite out of his dinner.

Jaehyun chuckled. “The one with the red hair, that cute little crooked tooth.”

“Oh yeah, I remember him,” he said after a moment.

“He was on our show today. He’s a serious actor now. He’s been in a couple of dramas already, has a movie out next summer.”

“No way,” Taeyong said incredulously. “That Lankenstein?”

“Yeah. Shit, I felt so old when I realized it was the same kid,” Jaehyun said with a smile, happy to see the upward twitch of the corners of Taeyong’s mouth. “He remembers you.”

“Me?” Taeyong said, pointing to himself with his chopsticks.

“Yeah. He said that our MV was the first thing he filmed and he was nervous out of his mind and you were really nice to him, and you took care of him well even though he was just a newbie, so he felt more confident. He said he still remembers that and he’s still grateful to you.”

“That’s strange,” Taeyong mused, and the smile Jaehyun thought he saw earlier crept into Taeyong’s eyes.

“I don’t think so,” Jaehyun replied, absently reaching over to take slices of bell peppers out of Taeyong’s dinner. “People always remember the little things.”

“I guess that’s true,” Taeyong said softly, and Jaehyun looked up at him, caught him staring at the box of half eaten food, his favorite dish from his favorite restaurant, at Jaehyun reaching over to eat all the bell peppers Taeyong had left in a little pile on the lid, the one thing Taeyong hated eating. He knew what Taeyong was thinking. All those little things.

Jaehyun remembered.

 

 That hostility he had felt from those first few nights slowly disappeared. Taeyong talked more, he laughed more. By the end of a couple of weeks, Taeyong was happy to see him. Genuinely happy.

One night, over a month after Jaehyun started visiting Taeyong, he entered the apartment and found the lights on in the living room, in the kitchen, and he took a look around the apartment for the first time since he started coming there. It was beautiful, he realized. A large living room with what appeared to be French windows, hiding behind white curtains. All of Taeyong’s old furniture, the couch they had christened on its first night in Taeyong’s old apartment, the grey armchair that he loved sinking into. He grinned.

“Hyung?” he called out.

“Jae, over here,” Taeyong’s voice called from the kitchen.

Jaehyun stepped into the kitchen, looking incredulously at Taeyong, sitting on a kitchen chair with his crutches propped up on the table, sipping a cup of coffee.

“Guess who walked all the way to the kitchen,” Taeyong said with a grin. “But then I sort of gave up and settled here so I don’t know if it’s really a victory.”

Jaehyun smiled. “That’s amazing, hyung,” he said, looking at a man who had stayed in bed all day for the past month, getting up only to eat, use the bathroom, and for his compulsory physiotherapy every morning. Looking at a drowning man saving himself. “That’s really great.”

He pulled a chair and sat down facing Taeyong.

“How was your day?” he asked.

“I was reading,” Taeyong said, and he slid a book towards Jaehyun.

“The narrow road to the deep north?”

“It’s fucked up,” Taeyong said. “Makes you feel kinda small, in the face of all that human suffering.”

Jaehyun hummed, a smile playing on the corners of his lips as he listened to Taeyong talk about the book.

 

“He got out of bed,” he told Solbi excitedly. They were sitting cross legged in bed, making their way through a disappointing excuse of a late night snack, apples and mandarin oranges, all in the name of health.

“That’s great,” Solbi said, smiling happily at him, sucking on an orange segment.

“God, baby, now he’s starting to seem a little like his old self and that’s so great… you know what, you should meet him. You’ll love him.”

Solbi nodded. “Sure,” she said, and then she hesitated.

“What is it?” Jaehyun asked, picking up on the fact that there was something on her mind.

“I just…” she began, but then she shook her head with a smile. “It’s nothing.”

“Solbi,” he said softly, reaching out and holding her hand. “What is it?”

“Was Taeyong the guy? The one you were with?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said.

“I knew it, but I sort of just… I didn’t know how to ask. How long were you together?”

“About nine years, give or take.”

“Nine years, wow. That’s a long time,” she said with a long exhale, and then she laughed awkwardly. “Should I be worried?”

Jaehyun smiled. “Are you crazy? No,” he said. “No, it’s just you.”

She nodded, but Jaehyun wasn’t satisfied. He pulled her close and kissed her. “I love you,” he said. “It’s just you. I love you.”

She looked up at him pensively for a moment before cracking a smile, and then she laughed. “I was being stupid, sorry. I love you, too,” she said.

“Should I not go, tomorrow?” Jaehyun asked, the idea of leaving Taeyong alone again twisting painfully in his chest.

“Don’t be stupid. He needs you. You should go,” she said.

“You’re amazing, Solbi.”

 

“Hey hyung,” Jaehyun said softly, crouched on the floor by the couch.

Taeyong groaned and stirred. “Jae, sorry, I don’t know when I fell asleep,” he mumbled.

“Hyung, it’s raining.”

“Really?” Taeyong asked, blinking up at him.

Jaehyun nodded. “It’s very pretty outside, you want to see?

“Yeah,” Taeyong said, sitting up and putting his book aside. Jaehyun grinned. When he had walked into the apartment, the first thing he saw was Taeyong passed out on the couch with his glasses askew and an open book on his chest, and he had laughed quietly at how cute the whole thing was.

He reached out and fixed Taeyong’s glasses, and then got to his feet and walked towards the windows. He drew the curtains, revealing beautiful French windows and flooding the apartment with a watery yellowish glow. Wet glistening trees outside swayed in the strong wind that rattled the windows, and rain fell hard against the glass, a muffled pattering, rumbling, thundering.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Jaehyun said, turning around and Taeyong smiled brightly. Jaehyun’s heart almost stopped because for a moment in that light he looked so young, so beautiful, and Jaehyun couldn’t quite catch his breath.

“You know what would be perfect right now?”

“Coffee.”

“Hot chocolate.”

“I’m on a diet.”

“Green tea, it is,” Taeyong said with a chuckle, pushing himself off the couch and propping himself up on his crutches.

“Hyung sit down, I’ll make it,” Jaehyun said.

“I can do it,” Taeyong said with a smile, and there was no hostility there, just a quiet confidence, and it left Jaehyun melting. He nodded.

They carried steaming cups of green tea back to the living room and settled down on the floor, leaning up against the couch, propping Taeyong’s leg up on a cushion, and Jaehyun let his body relax. He sat there, sipping his tea, watching the rain with his hyung, a spattering of comfortable conversation and laughter amidst warmth and silence, and he felt so inexplicably at ease.

When it got dark, Taeyong turned all the lights on in the apartment, and everything was bathed in warm yellow light. Jaehyun sat there, taking everything in, the big windows, the yellow lights, this beautiful apartment in Gangnam, and his beautiful Taeyong.

His phone vibrated, and he looked down to see a message from Solbi. Hey, where are you?

“I should go,” he said to Taeyong.

 

Jaehyun’s phone vibrates. He opens his eyes and looks down at the screen.

Hey, where are you?

He picks up the phone, types out a reply.

Almost home. Don’t wait up, just sleep if you’re tired.

He’s about to put his phone away when he catches sight of the time. 12:02.

“Hey hyung?” he says with a mischievous grin. “Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s a little past twelve, why?”

“You know what that means, hyung?”

“I don’t know,” Hyunseung says. “What does it mean?”

“It means it’s Tuesday, so give me the damn Dalgona.”

Hyunseung laughs, reaching over to the dashboard and retrieving the brown paper bag.

“I swear to God, Jaehyun, sometimes I can’t believe you’re a thirty odd year old man,” he says, passing the bag back to a grinning Jaehyun.

Jaehyun just smiles and bites into one pretty, perfectly round, perfectly caramel colored Dalgona, working around the heart shape pressed into the centre.

“Save some,” Hyunseung says. “Don’t be an ass, you wanted to take those home, remember?”

“I’ll save one and say you ate the rest.”

“You’re a twelve year old, Jung Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun laughs. That’s not the first time he’s heard that. In fact, Hyunseung is the only one kind enough to give him credit for a double digit mental age. Solbi never gave him anything higher than eight, the whole of NCT said six, and his mom always said five.

He supposes that’s fair, considering the fact that he once started a food fight with Solbi that left her covered in flour and their kitchen floor a slippery mess. She made him clean it up, considering he started the fight and God knows she never backed down from a fight.

And Taeyong, even when his leg was broken, Jaehyun tried to fight him for a cookie. Then again, Taeyong was the one that took the last one and looked up at Jaehyun with a teasing grin that screamed fight me, bitch. Jaehyun really couldn’t help himself when he pushed him onto his back and sat on his hyung’s chest despite Taeyong’s groans and pleas saying Jaehyun, would you really fight a cripple?

Jaehyun bites back laughter when he remembers Taeyong’s face, the betrayal in his eyes when Jaehyun took the cookie from his hand and ate it all in one go. Diets be damned.

His smile softens, and he remembers what happened next, right after Jaehyun climbed off of Taeyong and lay down next to him. Taeyong turned to look at him, and the moment their eyes met they burst into laughter, laughing hard enough to tear up, and Jaehyun was left clutching his side, breathless from five minutes of exertion. And then they remembered how old they were really getting.

“Hyungie,” Jaehyun said to him when they had calmed down. “I need to go.”

“Stay a while?” Taeyong suggested, his fingers curling around Jaehyun’s wrist, pulling him closer gently.

Jaehyun hesitated, so Taeyong bargained. “Till I fall asleep,” he said, and Jaehyun knew how much it would have taken out of the man’s pride to beg him to stay.

“I don’t want to fall asleep alone again,” Taeyong said softly, and Jaehyun’s chest tightened all over again.

“I’ll stay till you fall asleep,” he said gently, stroking Taeyong’s cheekbone. He lay there, quietly talking to his hyung, about things that made him happy, carding through his hair and scratching lightly at his scalp till his eyes fluttered shut.

“Good night, hyung,” Jaehyun whispered, and left his apartment quietly.

 

“Jae, can we talk about something else?” Solbi said softly.

“What?” Jaehyun said, a little taken aback. They were lying in bed, talking like they always did before falling asleep.

“It’s just that… you ask me about my day and I tell you about my day. I ask you about yours, and you tell me about Taeyong,” Solbi said. “I’m glad he’s getting better, I really am. It’s important that you take care of people who took care of you. And I’m so glad you’re the kind of man who can put all circumstances aside and help someone in need, but… you spend an hour or two at his place every night, and you’re so busy as it is, so really, that should be our time. You’re already giving him so much of that time, so when you’re with me, I don’t want that to be about Taeyong, too? I don’t know, is that unreasonable? I feel shitty saying that. Really petty. Am I petty? I’m sorry, it just sort of…”

He felt a little rush of guilt in his gut. How stupid of him, he realized. How stupid not to realize just how wonderful Solbi was being about him visiting Taeyong. He reached out and cupped her cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s not petty, that’s perfectly reasonable. I’m sorry.”

“Really?” Solbi asked.

Jaehyun laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “I was just happy that he’s getting better so I got a little carried away. This time is just for us, okay? Just about us.”

“Thank you,” Solbi said with a small smile and Jaehyun kissed her gently.

“So how was your day?” she asked, curling into his side.

“I met Na PD today. He’s starting a new show, he’s saying he wants me to consider.”

“Na PD? That’s interesting, it might be fun to change things up a bit. Your image is too clean,” she said with a grin.

Jaehyun scoffed. “Too clean, she says. That’s not what you were saying last night,” he said, wrapping an arm around her, letting her rest her head on his chest.

She laughed, her pretty tinkling laughter, and looked up at him, and Jaehyun got lost in the shape of her eyes, the brown of her hair, that pretty pink mouth.

 

Jaehyun looks out of his window at the wet streets of Seoul, the traffic, even at this hour, the streetlights and headlights and neon signs reflected in puddles and wet asphalt. How pretty, he thinks. How he’d love to take a walk now, down the quiet back alleys of his neighborhood. Maybe, if he were less tired, he thinks.

Maybe tomorrow, late evening, if it’s still raining then.

He stretches noisily.

“Hyung can’t you go any faster?”

“We’re almost there. Keep it in your pants for fifteen minutes.”

“Fine,” he grumbles, leaning back and closing his eyes again.

He’s amused for a moment, because he picks up right where he left off, the image of a pretty pink mouth lingering behind his eyelids.

But this time, it’s Taeyong’s mouth. Closing around a spoonful of rice. A mouth made for kissing. For the first time after he started visiting Taeyong, he let himself look at his hyung like that.

“What are you looking at?” Taeyong asked, and Jaehyun shook his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so, so much for your comments :)  
> Please do leave some more. I love knowing what I'm doing to you guys <3


	5. Chapter 5

Jaehyun’s phone buzzes again. He picks it up and looks at the screen.

Baby, too tired. I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up when you come home.

 

He smiles and sends a reply.

Just go to bed, stupid. We have all day tomorrow.

 

The response takes a minute or so.

I need to talk to you about something. Wake me up, please. I don’t want to wait till tomorrow.

 

Jaehyun eyes the message on his screen carefully. What the hell is that supposed to mean? He types out an apprehensive reply.

Am I in trouble?

 

You’re not in trouble dummy, just hurry home.

 

Okay. Love you.

 

Love you, too.

 

Oh shit, he thinks. No heart. There’s always a heart at the end of Love you, too. This is not good.

Maybe he should have saved some more Dalgona. It sounds like he’ll be needing it.

He sighs, an unpleasant trepidation settling behind his ribs, and he wonders what the problem could be.

Not his work hours, can’t be. He’s been taking a break every Tuesday for months now so he can spend more time at home.

He hasn’t said anything stupid recently. They haven’t disagreed over anything. No dinners with family that could have rubbed either of them the wrong way, no financial troubles, nothing. What is this about?

Oh well, he thinks. He’ll find out soon enough.

He just sits back, and hopes it isn’t the same fight again. Fucking Taeyong. He can’t argue about this anymore, can’t make his intentions any clearer.

He remembers the first fight he had with Solbi about Taeyong.

It was late one evening when he came home from Taeyong’s and found that she hadn’t come back yet. It was unusual for her to work so late, so he left her a text.

Hey baby, when are you back?

There was no reply, and he just shrugged it off, assuming she was busy. But an hour or more passed and there still was no reply, so he got worried and called her. She didn’t answer.

He waited. He showered and changed and tried to watch TV for a while, but it was getting late, and he was getting worried with every passing minute. He knew what the industry was like, the kind of creeps who became PDs and actors, the sort of depravity that was accepted as an everyday occurrence in their line of work, and he knew she was a beautiful woman, and he couldn’t help himself when he thought of all the worst possibilities. So he called her manager.

“Hello? Yes, I was trying to call Solbi but I can’t seem to get in touch with her,” he said.

“Oh, she left already,” the manager said. “She said she was going out with her friends.”

“She’s not at the shoot?”

“No. Should I try calling her?”

“No, that’s alright,” he said. “I just wanted to see if she’s okay.”

The manager laughed. “She’s fine. She was with Sohee-ssi last I checked. Don’t worry Jaehyun-ssi.”

“Alright, thank you,” Jaehyun said with a smile, and hung up.

Then he relaxed, knowing she was unharmed and probably having quite a night with her friends. He grinned, amused by his own paranoia. He climbed into bed and fell asleep.

He woke up when Solbi slid into bed next to him, at around one forty five.

“Hey,” he mumbled. “Had a good night?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Could you please tell me you’re going out next time?”

“Why?” she asked.

He blinked at her. “I was worried. You didn’t answer your phone and you didn’t reply…”

“Why should I tell you what I’m doing, Jae,” she said softly.

He sat up. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked hesitantly.

She sighed. “Nothing,” she said. “Good night.”

He stared at her back for a moment.

“Solbi?” he said. “Can we talk about this?”

She turned to face him.

“Baby I was worried,” he said.

“About what?”

“About you getting hurt, is what. You know that…”

“I just came home late. Why is this such a big deal?”

“It’s not a big deal, Solbi. You’re a grown woman and you can go wherever you want and come home whenever you want. I wouldn’t dream of stopping you or questioning you, you know that. So tell me what’s bothering you, honestly.”

She sat up. “Taeyong,” she said. “You disappear for two hours every night to see your ex. I’m your wife and I see you less than that. You don’t tell me a damned thing about what you do there. So I don’t see why you should ask me to tell you what I’m doing.”

“Baby, I’m not asking you to tell me where you are or what you’re doing, I just need to know that you’re safe. And you told me to help him, remember? You told me you didn’t want to hear about the time I spend there.”

“I know, and I thought I could be okay with that, Jaehyun, but I swear, every time you come home late and I realize you’re coming from Taeyong’s place, it feels awful. I just lie in bed thinking nine years is a long fucking time, longer than you and I have even known each other and… he’s attractive and nice and there’s so much history there… what if you just… gave in?”

He stared at her for a moment. “There’s nothing there, Solbi,” he said to her. “I would never do that to you. I’m sorry if the things I did made you think that, but I swear. I haven’t touched him. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

She regarded him carefully, blinking back tears. “You swear?”

“I swear,” he said.

She sat there for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip. “If I asked you not to go back?”

His mouth opened, and closed, and he looked at her blankly for a moment. What could he really have said? Let his wife suffer or let a man he once loved drown?

“I trust your judgment,” he said. “He needs someone right now, and he’s just getting better. If I stick around for a little while longer, he’ll get back on his feet. If I leave now, I’m not so sure. But I don’t want you to suffer, Solbi. You’re my wife, and I care about you more than anything.”

“Where is his family, Jaehyun? It’s been months. Why are you the only one taking care of him?”

“They won’t come,” he said, swallowing down something burning hot in his throat. “He left them for me.”

“What?”

“He told them about me, and they were against it, so he left.”

She breathed in and out, deep and slow.

“What about other friends?”

“Chittaphon, maybe Taeil hyung. But Chittaphon has gone back home. Taeil hyung is touring right now. There was one model he was close to, but I don’t think they’ve spoken to each other in a while.”

Her eyes filled with frustrated tears. “Fine,” she said. “Two more months Jae. I don’t think I can take much more than that.”

“Okay,” he said, and he leaned over and pulled her gently into a hug. “If it was bothering you so much, why didn’t you say anything before?” he asked softly. “I would have told you a thousand times over that I love you. I would have come home earlier and spent more time with you, till you got sick of me and…”

She sniffled, and he kissed her hair. “Don’t cry,” he said. “Don’t cry, I’ll do better.”

 

The next night, when he went to Taeyong’s place, he told him he’d have to start leaving earlier.

“Is it your wife?” Taeyong asked.

Jaehyun nodded.

“I was wondering how she was okay with you coming here,” Taeyong said.

Jaehyun smiled. “She understands. She’s nice, hyung. You’d like her.”

“I’m sure she’s wonderful, Jaehyun. If you fell in love her she must be wonderful.”

Jaehyun grinned. “Was that just a roundabout way of paying yourself a compliment?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Taeyong said with a smile. “I think that works out as a compliment to all three of us.”

 

Jaehyun clearly remembers the first time Taeyong called him after the accident.

“Hyung?” Jaehyun said, wondering what he needed.

“Jaehyunnie,” he said. “Guess who’s finally off pain meds.”

“Oh shit, hyung that’s great!” Jaehyun said. “What else did the doctor say?”

“It’s healing really well, I’m able to put weight on it now, all in all it’s just a couple of more months before I’m completely fine.”

“That’s amazing hyung,” Jaehyun said, and his smile was clear in his voice. “I guess this means you can drink again?”

“Yep.”

“Celebratory beer?” he said with a laugh.

“Sounds perfect.”

“Great, I’ll probably be done here by five thirty. See you then.”

 

At five fifty, Jaehyun was cross legged on Taeyong’s living room couch sipping a cold beer, laughing at the adoration in Taeyong’s eyes when he looked at his bottle of beer.

“I missed you,” Taeyong cooed at the bottle and Jaehyun snorted.

“So dramatic,” Jaehyun said.

“Says the man who cried because I broke my leg,” Taeyong shoots back, settling back on the couch cushions and sipping his drink.

Jaehyun flushed to the tips of his ears. “Shut up hyung, I was scared,” Jaehyun said softly. “I thought you were horribly hurt, I thought maybe you were… gone. So when I saw you, I just…”

“You just cried like a baby?”

“I did no such thing, hyung, I teared up a little.”

“Same difference,” Taeyong said, so amused at Jaehyun’s embarrassment.

Jaehyun turned and kicked playfully at Taeyong’s uninjured leg.

“Hey, stop, what if you break this leg too?” Taeyong said, grabbing at Jaehyun’s ankle. “You might end up crying again.”

Jaehyun scoffed and turned his attention back to his beer. “Fuck off, hyung, sue me for caring about you.”

“Sorry,” Taeyong said, smiling at Jaehyun, gently pulling him by the ankle, letting him rest both feet in Taeyong’s lap. “I just miss teasing you.”

“Ass,” Jaehyun grumbles, but he makes himself comfortable on the couch, back against the armrest, long legs stretched out, feet resting in his hyung’s lap. They had sat that way so many times before, and if a few more minutes passed, he knew Taeyong would start playing with his toes, and then maybe he’d get a spontaneous foot massage. That’s how it used to go.

One beer turned into two, and then three. Both Jaehyun and Taeyong had sunk low into the couch cushions by then. A pleasant buzz softening edges. Jaehyun looked at Taeyong’s profile, his strong eyebrows, his long eyelashes, the slope of his nose and its sharp little tip, the pink flush of his pretty mouth, that sharp jawline. He remembered nights his mouth traced Taeyong’s jawline, brushed over his sharp cheekbones, pressed feverishly against his soft mouth. His breath caught in his throat.

How fucking beautiful, Jaehyun thought.

“Hyung?” he said, and Taeyong turned towards him. Doe eyes and pretty mouth.

Jaehyun shook his head, and Taeyong smiled and raised an eyebrow.

“You’re still crazy pretty, hyung,” he said and Taeyong smiled full and true. Jaehyun could not breathe. His chest tightened, and he knew he had no right to feel that pain, but he felt it all the same.

“Were you mad at me?” he asked. “When I married Solbi, were you mad at me?”

Taeyong looked at him, surprise evident in his eyes. He didn’t expect Jaehyun to ask him that. Jaehyun didn’t expect himself to ask that either, but the question was heavy in his heart for almost two years and he couldn’t help himself.

“Yeah,” Taeyong said. “I knew it wasn’t fair, I knew we had broken up and it was only reasonable that you looked for someone else, but still I was angry. Betrayed, maybe. I’m not mad anymore, though. I understand, Jaehyun. You had to move on, and it makes perfect sense for you to marry someone wonderful and settle down and make lots of babies.”

Perfect sense, Jaehyun thought, turning the words over and over in his mind.

“Didn’t you look for someone else, hyung?” he asked softly, and he didn’t know if he really wanted that answered.

“I did,” Taeyong replied hesitantly. “For a while, I tried, with someone else. We got together a few times, but it felt all wrong so we just stopped.”

Jaehyun’s chest tightened all over again. “Who?” he asked.

“Jin Hwan.”

Jaehyun sat up. “Jin Hwan, your model friend?”

Taeyong nodded.

Jaehyun moved closer. “Lee Jin Hwan?” he asked again.

“Yeah,” Taeyong said with a chuckle.

“I knew it,” Jaehyun said. Jin Hwan the tall, thin, ridiculously handsome newbie that Taeyong had an inexplicable soft spot for. Jin Hwan, the little shit that smiled at Taeyong with a pretty blush that rubbed Jaehyun the wrong way.

“Knew what Jaehyun?”

“Nothing, hyung,” Jaehyun said, hiding a chest full of hurt. He looked up at Taeyong and sucked in a breath. Should he ask? Did he even want to know? The image of Taeyong’s naked body pressed against the young model’s, their mouths moving together, reaching and pulling each other close, burned behind Jaehyun’s eyes. It was something he pictured for the first time when Taeyong had to work with Jin Hwan all those years ago, and Jaehyun waited for him at his apartment, with nothing to do but fill his mind with useless thoughts. He supposed if he asked, Taeyong would answer honestly.

“When we were together, did you and him…”

Taeyong reached over and flicked Jaehyun on the head. “Of course not. What’s the matter with you?”

“Ow,” Jaehyun said, swatting Taeyong’s hand away. “I’m just saying, he always had the hots for you.”

“What - that doesn’t mean anything. For me, it was just you. It was always just you,” Taeyong said, an embarrassed flush climbing his neck. “When we were together, that is.”

Jaehyun smiled, his heart soaring childishly. “And for me, it was just you, hyung,” he said. Taeyong looked up and their eyes met for a moment, something hopeful flickering there for a fragmented second.

“When we were together, that is,” Jaehyun added, and Taeyong dropped his gaze.

“It’s getting late, you should leave,” Taeyong said.

“I should,” Jaehyun said.

 

Just before he left, he pressed a soft little kiss to Taeyong’s hair and whispered good night, and Taeyong wrapped his arms around Jaehyun, pulled him into a tight embrace and Jaehyun just melted against him. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the fact that after all those years, they still fit, their bodies still fit perfectly together, but Jaehyun felt something squeezing his chest till he couldn’t quite breathe.

 

“Are you drunk?” Solbi asked him.

“I’ve had a little to drink, yeah,” he said, a little irritated at the buried accusation in her tone.

“At Taeyong’s?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, turning her attention back to her book.

He sighed. “Are you mad at me?” he asked her.

“No,” she said. “I trust you. Even if you had a little to drink, you’d remember your promise to me, right? You wouldn’t touch him?”

“Of course,” he said.

That soft little kiss he pressed to Taeyong’s hair was okay, right? That hug? That was perfectly innocent, it meant nothing. For the briefest of moments, he remembers the thoughts that ran through his mind when he let his gaze travel over Taeyong’s face, his body. Those were memories. That was bound to happen, looking at someone and remembering the memories you shared with them.

“Of course,” he said again.

She smiled at him.

“Another month and you’re done, right?”

He nodded and smiled back.

His chest hurt so bad he couldn’t form words.

 

Just before he fell asleep, he texted Taeyong.

Hyung, what do you mean it was all wrong? Between you and Jin Hwan.

 

Fifteen minutes passed.

Why are you asking when you know the answer?

 

I’m sorry, hyung.

 

Go to sleep, Jae.

 

Jaehyun stared at the ceiling for an hour, listening to his wife’s quiet breathing next to him.

He wondered if Taeyong still loved him

He wondered, for a second, a fraction of a second, if he still loved Taeyong.

He shook his head, drew Solbi close, and fell asleep.

 

He went back to Taeyong’s place the next day with the memory of his stupid doubts wiped clean from his mind.

“Hyung?” he said.

“You’re early,” Taeyong said with a smile, looking up from an assortment of papers spread out in front of him on the kitchen table.

“Something was cancelled. What’s all this?” he asked, sitting down across the table from Taeyong.

“I’m just trying to figure out my finances,” Taeyong said with a deep frown.

“Are you having trouble?” Jaehyun asked delicately.

“Maybe, a little,” Taeyong mused.

“What’s going on?” Jaehyun asked, craning his neck towards the papers.

“I haven’t been working for about six months now,” Taeyong said. “I’ve been dipping into my savings for everything except medical bills. The insurance and the entertainment company are covering that.”

“Okay,” Jaehyun says.

“My contract ends this year, and I don’t think I’m going to renew it.”

“You’re signing with another company?”

“I’m retiring.”

“What?” Jaehyun said blankly.

“I can’t go back,” Taeyong said quietly. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I can’t go back.”

“What does that mean? What are you going to do?”

“I’m going back to school.”

“And do what?”

“Study music. I’ve applied to a couple of places already and I know I’ll get in because I already have some experience with composing songs. I’ll be gone for a couple of years, and I’m sure in that time everyone would have forgotten about me. Then maybe I’ll come back, to produce music.”

“Production?” Jaehyun asked, letting the thought sink in. The Taeyong he knew was a performer through and through. He wondered for a moment, if he’d ever be happy without the lights and the cameras and the screaming fans.

“I can’t do this dancing monkey bullshit anymore. I don’t want to be in the limelight, Jae,” Taeyong said. “I want to fall off the grid, Jaehyun…”

Off the grid.

“No more lines.”

No more lines to hold us back.

Taeyong was looking at him with big, beautiful eyes, deep brown and glimmering. Jaehyun sucked in a breath and his throat burned and his eyes burned.

“I um…” he trailed off. Was that an invitation, he wondered. Come with me, let’s fall off the grid together, no more lines, nothing to hold us back? He shook the thought away. It couldn’t be. Not after all these years.

“Where does that leave you? Financially?” Jaehyun asked, his voice tight.

“With royalties from the tracks I composed plus savings and investments, I think I can just about support myself for the next five years.”

“That’s not good,” Jaehyun said, dragging his chair forward, next to Taeyong, so he could look at the papers. “That’s cutting it kind of close.”

“It’s the apartment,” Taeyong said softly. “It’s too expensive for me right now.”

Jaehyun looked at the numbers. Taeyong was right. With his monthly income dwindling to a fraction of what it was before, he couldn’t quite afford the place anymore. It was eating  up a substantial amount of what he had.

“Maybe it’s better if you move?” Jaehyun said gently.

Taeyong shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “I… I want to keep the place. For as long as I can.”

“Hyung, it doesn’t seem too feasible,” Jaehyun began, but Taeyong shook his head again.

“No, Jaehyun.”

“Hyung, I agree, it’s a beautiful place, but maybe it’s more practical to just…”

Warm yellow lights and big windows.

Taeyong looked up at him.

Our home, warm yellow lights, big windows, just you and me. No more hiding.

Jaehyun swallowed thickly, willing air into his lungs but he felt a weight on his chest that kept him from breathing, speaking, moving.

“Was this for us?” Jaehyun asked quietly. “The apartment, was it for you and me?”

Taeyong smiled at him. “Yeah,” he said. “This was the dream.”

A silence descended around them that carried the weight of all the promises he broke. He couldn't quite meet Taeyong's eyes, because Solbi's face lingered behind his own. Solbi, another promise Jaehyun had to keep.

 “Are you going to leave now?” Taeyong asked. Jaehyun just sat there blinking back tears.

“I have to go,” he said.

“Alright, Jaehyun.”

“Hyung, I don’t think I should come back tomorrow.”

“I know you won’t,” Taeyong said and Jaehyun’s chest hurt, hurt, hurt.

He stood, gathered his things, and Taeyong stood, too.

“I’m leaving,” he said. “You… call me if the finances get tight or… if you need anything, just call me.”

Taeyong nodded, and Jaehyun’s eyes lingered on his beautiful face again.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Jaehyun asked, and it came from his mouth without his permission.

Taeyong looked up at him, up, because he was a couple of inches shorter, the perfect fucking height to hug and kiss and god, no, he can’t go through this again.

“We were a mess Jaehyun, we were…”

“Stagnating.”

“Yeah. And I was desperate. I didn’t want to lose you, so I thought maybe we could just move in together? Maybe that would fix everything? It was stupid, maybe it would have worked, maybe it would have fallen apart spectacularly, but I wanted to try.”

“Hyung,” Jaehyun said, but he didn’t know what to say next. His eyes stung hot.

“So I found this place and I went over to tell you about it, but you… you had already given up.”

“I… fuck.”

“You swore to me you’d always come back to me, but you gave up,” Taeyong said, his eyes filling with tears. “I didn’t see the point in trying anymore.”

Jaehyun let out something like a sob, reached out to cup Taeyong’s face in both hands. “I’m sorry,” he said, leaning his forehead against Taeyong’s and closing his eyes tight. “I thought we couldn’t save it, I gave up, I’m sorry.”

“Did you fall out of love with me? You didn’t love me anymore so you let me go?”

“No, God, no,” Jaehyun said. “That wasn’t it, hyung, I wish I had held on to you, I love… I loved you so much.”

Taeyong’s fingers closed around Jaehyun’s wrists, holding tight, keeping him close. It was all Jaehyun could do to keep himself from pressing his lips to that pretty pink mouth, so he lingered, his mouth barely an inch from Taeyong’s. Hesitated, his whole body aching to just kiss him, but his mind told him not to. That wouldn’t be kind. Not to Taeyong, not to Solbi. People would hurt, people would suffer if he kissed Taeyong.

He opened his eyes and pulled back a little, watched Taeyong’s eyes open slowly.

“Don’t kiss me,” Taeyong said. “You won’t leave her. So don’t kiss me. Don’t reduce me to this.”

“I would never treat you like that,” Jaehyun murmured. “You’d never mean so little to me, hyung, you’re… you and me, we’re…”

Taeyong smiled.

 

Jaehyun walked into his bedroom quietly. “Hey,” he said to Solbi, curled up in bed with a magazine. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

“Hi,” she said with a smile. “You okay? You seem a little… off.”

“I’m fine,” he said, walking up to his closet and shrugging off his jacket. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Her attention drifted, and he focused on unbuttoning his shirt and pulling on a t shirt, willing himself not to let his mind wander.

“Baby?” Jaehyun said, heading off into the bathroom to drop his dirty clothes in the laundry and brush his teeth. Solbi hummed.

“I’m not going back to Taeyong hyung’s place anymore,” he said to her, and he was glad she couldn’t see his face, glad he could hide the tremor in his voice with the sound of running water.

A moment passed in silence, and then her voice rang out from the bedroom.

“Did something happen?” she asked.

“He’s better now. I don’t think I need to go back,” he said, squeezing too much toothpaste onto his toothbrush. He heard the magazine being tossed aside, the sheets rustling and soft footsteps coming closer to the bathroom.

“Jaehyun,” Solbi said from the bathroom door. His eyes met hers in the reflection in the mirror. “Did something happen?”

“No,” he said, and looked away. She came in, turned him to face her. Her big brown eyes gave nothing away.

“You’re sure nothing happened?” she asked, and he saw her eyes filling with tears.

“I didn’t touch him,” he said.

“Did he touch you then?”

“Solbi," he said, his voice low. "Nothing happened."

“What?” she said. “Why won’t you go back there?”

“What is that supposed to mean? You were the one that didn’t want me to go back.”

“And you were the one swearing to me there’s nothing there, you were the one telling me you had to see him, so what changed?”

“Nothing,” he said quietly. “Nothing changed. I’m still married to you, and he’s out of our lives again. Like it never fucking happened.”

 

The van pulls up in front of his building, and Jaehyun opens his eyes. He’s home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huhuhu thank you so much for such amazing comments. I don't think I've ever received such well thought out, helpful, constructive, lovely feedback. I love you guys T_T  
> dalpaengi, Ericka1991, Korinn3, Taeyongtrash, ao3expert, Geezeebee, TYvalentineBoy, minseokluvr, nmslrx, LovelyMVP, visionty, Shinees, rrongrrong, pristineindigo, alwaysthehummingbird, Andrealantis, bxing0410, Miss_Hedgehog  
> Omfg. I love you guys :')  
> I'm genuinely so emotional right now wtf.


	6. Chapter 6

“Good night, hyung. Have a great Tuesday,” Jaehyun says, gathering his things.

“Should I bring those up?” Hyunseung asks.

“I have hands hyung,” Jaehyun says with a cheeky smile. “Go home and figure out how to make your wife less mad at you.”

Hyunseung chuckles, watching Jaehyun get out of the van. “Good night,” Hyunseung calls out, and Jaehyun smiles and heads off towards the entrance.

He takes tired steps across the lobby, across dark gleaming floors bathed in soft yellow lights. He stands there waiting for the elevator, watching the glowing red numbers on the panel, as if glaring at it would make it move faster.

The doors slide open, and he steps in with a tired sigh, presses number 8, leans against the back wall, closes his eyes.

Soft music starts playing. He recognizes it. Le mal du pays, the lingering notes of pure melancholy.

He smiles.

 

This was the same piece that was playing that night when he and Solbi went out for dinner.

He had stopped seeing Taeyong by then. Almost six months since that last evening at Taeyong’s place, almost six months since he found out about the apartment, about everything that could have been between them.

He and Solbi were working on their marriage. She said she needed to see him more, so he had been coming home earlier every night to have dinner with his wife in his home like a real married couple. The first couple of nights felt awful. She wouldn’t quite talk to him, nothing beyond formalities, boring small talk. She would smile, but it was tight lipped and unconvincing. And he was forced to work twice as hard to make her laugh, plaster a smile on his face and talk, talk, talk, till she responded to him, and he did it all without complaining because that was what was needed to save his marriage.

He knew he hadn’t done anything with Taeyong, nothing, out of respect for both his wife and his ex. But somehow he was forced into this role of cheating husband, and he couldn’t get out of it. It was in the way she looked at him sometimes, something accusatory, something that said I know what you did. He hadn’t done a damned thing, but she was forcing him into that role, forcing him to feel guilty for something he didn’t do.

It got better, slowly. She began to laugh like she used to, talk like she used to, touch him like she used to, and that made him feel better. They started going out more often, date nights, just to mix things up.

And it was at one of those dinner dates that it all came crashing down on Jaehyun. He was absently cutting his steak, when he realized Solbi wasn’t eating.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

She smiled and shook her head, busying herself with her food.

He regarded her carefully for a moment, and then he set his fork and knife down, and leaned forward.

“Baby, are you feeling okay?” he asked gently. She had been odd for almost a week. He thought he had seen her drifting away in the middle of conversations and not quite paying attention to what he was saying, not eating all that much, but he had dismissed it. She had been busy that week, maybe she was just tired.

She looked up at him, and he saw her blinking away tears.

“Hey,” he said softly reaching for her hand but she pulled it away and fixed her hair. “What is it?”

“Nothing, just eat,” she said.

“Should we go home?” he asked. She shook her head.

“Solbi…”

“I slept with Hyukjae,” she said softly.

He stared at her wordlessly. His mind scrambled to focus and come up with something intelligent to say but all he managed was a strangled “What?”

“Last week, it was late and I didn’t have my car so he offered to drive me home. But then he said let’s get drinks for old times’ sake and I thought why not. Jae, I didn’t mean for it happen, but it just sort of happened…”

“Just happened?” he said with an incredulous laugh, and it all began to sink in.

“Don’t fucking… you’re no better than me, Jaehyun,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Taeyong. Stop pretending. I’m not stupid, I know something happened there.”

“Nothing happened,” he said, his voice low, his throat closing up in anger. “Don’t make this about me.”

She stared at him. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not fucking lying Solbi,” he said, the image of Taeyong’s wet eyes looking at him, of his pretty pink mouth saying don’t kiss me, clear in his mind. He walked away from that so he wouldn’t hurt her, and she…

“We talked about this, and you said you trusted me. You said come home earlier, I’ve been coming home earlier, you said no more Taeyong, I haven’t spoken to him in months. I’ve been doing everything you want, so how the fuck is it possible that you’re making this my fault?”

Her face closed off and she stayed silent for a long moment. “I could have said no,” she said softly. “But I remembered your face when you came home from Taeyong’s that night, and I just…”

“I’m leaving,” Jaehyun said. “Get back safe.”

“Jae, stop,” she said. “Let’s go together, let’s talk about this, please.”

“No.”

He left his card on the table, it was his turn to treat that night, he turned around and walked out. No voices raised, no scene created. He left quietly, the lingering notes of pure melancholy, Le mal du pays, settling softly behind him in that elegant restaurant.

 

The elevator doors slide open, and Jaehyun opens his eyes. He straightens up, steps out into the hallway.

 

It was over a month after he left Solbi. He had been staying with his parents for that time, work, home, work, home, and that was it. His parents were kind about the whole thing. Asked if he was sure, heard about what she did and told him they’d be on his side, whatever he chose. He was grateful to them, immensely grateful for their support.

It had always been like that, even all those years ago, when he first told them about Taeyong, they had accepted him with open arms. It meant the world to Taeyong that they had accepted the man he loved without a second thought, but nothing he felt matched up to what it meant to Taeyong. Where his own parents had rejected him, Jaehyun’s parents hadn’t, and that rooted him to them so strongly that even after Jaehyun and Taeyong broke up, he still sent flowers and gifts on their birthdays and anniversary.

Every night, he replayed that conversation with Solbi, over and over in his mind, and he hoped the hurt would lessen with every iteration but it just got worse. The sense of betrayal he felt, that she had antagonized him for so long only to fuck him over like that. He couldn’t forgive her, not when he thought of how hard he had been working just to make sure she trusted him again. He felt played, used, taken for granted.

Every night he fell asleep with thoughts of Taeyong, what he walked away from, what he gave up. Every night he fell asleep fighting the urge to just crumple up in Taeyong’s bed. Every night he made do with slipping his hands into old, fraying yellow socks. He had found them in the back of his closet when he was packing his bags.

And then, one night, he just couldn’t take it anymore.

He was on the way home when his manager’s phone started ringing incessantly. The news broke. Jung Jaehyun and Kang Solbi’s separation.

Jaehyun sank low in his seat, his heart heavy and his body heavy and with every new phone call and his manager’s strained voice saying no comment, Jaehyun felt his patience wearing thin.

He pulled out his phone and called Solbi, feeling the weight of all his obligations in the time he spent waiting for her to answer.

“Jaehyun!” she said.

“Are you alright?” he asked tiredly.

“I’m fine. I’m on my way back from Gangwon-do. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Official statement?”

“No comment,” she said.

“Okay,” he said. “Stay with Sohee today. Don’t go home. Call if you need anything.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Jaehyun?”

“What?” he asked, and he didn’t mean to sound so curt.

“Nothing, just… nothing. Good night.”

He hummed, hung up, and sank back into his seat. “She’s been going with no comment, too,” he mumbled, staring out of the window.

“Alright. And Jaehyun,” his manager’s voice called to him. “The news was bound to get out someday. Don’t worry about this. Just rest, I’ll handle this.”

Rest. Yes, he wanted to go home and rest. No, there were reporters waiting outside his apartment. Were they at his parents’ place, too?

“Shit…” he said, picking his phone up and dialing his mother’s number. “Hello?”

“Jaehyun,” she said. “Are you alright? There are reporters outside the house.”

Jaehyun groaned. “I’m fine mum, should I come pick you up? Do you want to go to a hotel or something?”

“Don’t be silly, they want to see you, not us,” she said with a chuckle. “And besides, they’re outside, we’re inside, the lock works, it’s all fine. They’re not bothering us or anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said gently. “Now, I know you don’t want to talk to them, so don’t come home tonight.”

“But you and dad are…”

“Absolutely fine. Just get a hotel room or go to a friend’s place. Don’t come home. You know it’ll bother you.”

“But…”

“Don’t argue with me, just take care of yourself. And stop worrying so much. Taeyong already called and said he’d come pick us up if we needed to leave.”

“Taeyong hyung?” Jaehyun asked softly.

“Yeah, so don’t worry. If we need anything, we’ll call him.”

“Alright,” he said hesitantly. “Thank you.”

“Jaehyun?”

“Yeah mum?”

“He asked about you. Maybe you should talk to him.”

“Maybe.”

Jaehyun hung up, a familiar tightening in his chest, tired, hurt, angry. He just wanted someone to take care of him. He just wanted to fall into Taeyong’s arms. His hyung, asking about him, taking care of his parents, even now, even now.

The van had stopped in some desolate side road close to his parents’ house. His manager turned to him.

“All good?” he asked.

Jaehyun nodded. “They don’t want to go to a hotel.”

“Alright, then, I’ll book a room for you. Or would you rather stay at my place?”

Jaehyun sat quietly, mulling, fighting a familiar urge. He looked up at Hyunseung.

“Gangnam,” he said.

“You want to go home?” Hyunseung asked. “There are a lot of reporters there right now, I don’t think it’s a good idea…”

Jaehyun shook his head. “Taeyong hyung’s apartment. Take me there.”

Something unsaid passed between the two of them. “You sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.

“No.”

“Why don’t I just book a hotel room?”

“No.”

Hyunseung sighed. “Just… be careful, okay? Don’t get hurt. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Jaehyun nodded.

 

Jaehyun walks down that familiar, old fashioned hallway, and despite his apprehension, he’s content. The relief of being home washing over him, soothing a tired body.

 

Forty five minutes later, he Jaehyun was walking down the hallway in Taeyong’s building, standing awkwardly in front of a heavy door with numbers reading 803, ringing the doorbell. Nervous, for no good reason. Moments later, the lock clicked and the door swung open.

Taeyong stood there in the doorway, his gentle eyes taking in Jaehyun’s disheveled appearance, the grey under his eyes. He looked somewhat surprised, a little nervous, a little relieved.

Taeyong stepped aside quietly, and Jaehyun followed him. The door barely clicked shut before Jaehyun wrapped his arms around Taeyong and hugged him tight, and Taeyong returned the embrace, one hand on the back of Jaehyun’s neck, holding him close like he used to.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” Jaehyun explained. “I’m sorry I just showed up without calling…”

“I don’t mind, Jae.”

“Thank you,” Jaehyun mumbled. “For checking up on my parents.”

“I was going to call you, too, but I didn’t know if you’d want that,” Taeyong said.

Jaehyun nodded, still clinging to Taeyong, and when Taeyong made to pull away, he clung tighter, mumbling out the words “Two more minutes.”

Taeyong just chuckled and held him, and when Jaehyun finally pulled away from the embrace, he smiled, and said “You’re still the same.”

“Around you, somehow,” Jaehyun mused, studying Taeyong’s face, drinking in the soft smile that sat comfortably on Taeyong’s mouth, the one that he saved only for Jaehyun.

“Beer?” Taeyong asked.

“Please. Bring out the big guns,” Jaehyun said with a chuckle.

“I have tequila and whisky,” Taeyong said, heading into the living room.

“Whisky, please. I’m getting too old for tequila.”

And that was how they ended up up on the couch, Jaehyun’s head in Taeyong’s lap, Taeyong’s fingers carding through. Two or three drinks down, Jaehyun wasn’t too sure. Pleasantly buzzed, just enough to loosen their tongues but not enough to do anything stupid.

“I miss you,” he murmured.

“I miss you, too,” Taeyong replied. “I’m sorry this is happening to you.”

Jaehyun chuckled. “I’m sorry too…” he trailed off. “She thought I was cheating on her, with you.”

Taeyong tensed up, the hand in Jaehyun’s hair freezing. “Oh god,” he said. “Is that why you separated?”

“No,” Jaehyun replied. “We’re splitting up because she cheated on me with her ex.”

Taeyong relaxed again. “That’s terrible. Revenge cheating?”

Jaehyun chuckled. “How tacky.”

Taeyong hummed, and Jaehyun turned onto his back and squinted up at Taeyong’s face.

“Stop looking up my nose,” Taeyong grumbled, sliding a hand over Jaehyun’s eyes, and Jaehyun laughed.

“I’m not,” he said, swatting Taeyong’s hand away. He held on his wrist, pulled the hand away from his face and let it rest on his chest.

Taeyong smiled, absently drawing circles where his hand was resting, staring off somewhere into the distance.

“I would have kissed you that night, if it weren’t for her,” Jaehyun said softly. “I would have asked you to take me back.”

“Jaehyun…” Taeyong said, something between warning and pleading.

“Sorry,” Jaehyun said.

“I don’t want you to make a mistake,” Taeyong said.

“You’d never be a mistake.”

“You’re still hurting,” Taeyong said softly. “First heal, then you can think of me or her or whatever…”

Jaehyun’s fingers tightened around Taeyong’s wrist. “You’re right,” he said. “Stop being right and pour me another drink.”

“Maybe you’ve had enough,” Taeyong said.

“Stop handling me.”

“Stop, Jae. I’ll go get a pair of pajamas for you to change into. You can sleep in my room, I’ll…”

“Alright,” Jaehyun said, sitting up. Taeyong stood, heading off to his room, and Jaehyun followed behind quietly. It seemed to him that his hyung didn’t want him, and he wouldn’t push.

In the darkness and silence of Taeyong’s bedroom, Jaehyun stood leaning against the side of the closet, and Taeyong pulled out pajamas, shut the closet door and held them out to Jaheyun. Jaehyun took it, but Taeyong wouldn’t let go.

“If it weren’t for her,” he said quietly. “I would have asked you to come back.”

Jaehyun stared at him, needing a moment to process what he had just said.

He stepped closer. “Do you want me?” he asked.

Taeyong closed his eyes and nodded. “We shouldn’t,” he said.

Jaehyun let go of the clothes he was holding and they fell to the ground with a soft rustle. He leaned in close, he kissed Taeyong. Pressed his mouth to Taeyong’s apprehensively, his desperation filtering through in the way he grasped tightly at Taeyong’s shirt. Taeyong didn’t push him away, choosing to just close his eyes and let himself be kissed. But when Jaehyun drew back briefly to breathe, to calm his nerves, Taeyong cupped his face and whispered, “Are you sure?”

Jaehyun shook his head, because he wasn’t sure at all, and he thought Taeyong deserved to know that.

“Aren’t you going to push me away?” Jaehyun said softly.

“I don’t have the strength to fight you,” Taeyong replied, still the same after so many years. Like that night in Vietnam, still the same. That was when Jaehyun realized that Taeyong was desperate, too.

For him. For his touch. For his love.

That made him feel good, special enough to let Taeyong capture his lips again. Neither of them really cared at that point, what they were doing, what it meant, where it would leave them. Kissing Taeyong felt like something from a lifetime ago, Jaehyun’s tongue delving into his mouth, that familiar taste, that warmth.

Taeyong broke the kiss and blinked at him as if he were trying to remember something, and Jaehyun cringed because he realized he had kissed him the way he kissed Solbi. Taeyong didn’t like that, that sort of sloppy, wet, impatient kiss. He liked it when Jaehyun worked him open, slow, deep kisses that urged him to open his mouth for Jaehyun, to let him in or to chase his tongue. So Jaehyun pecked him softly, like an apology, and he tried again, slow, deep, and then Taeyong’s mouth opened and Jaehyun fell into that kiss head first, that familiar pace, that perfect fit. He couldn’t breathe.

Taeyong took over, unbuttoning Jaehyun’s shirt, letting it fall to the floor, exhaling shakily at the sight of his skin. His hands trailed over Jaehyun’s body, his mouth working on Jaehyun’s neck. He pushed him backwards, one hand on his chest, his wet mouth drawing gasps from Jaehyun, helpless, aroused.

Jaehyun was on his back in Taeyong’s bed, and Taeyong was unbuckling Jaehyun’s belt, undoing his trousers, undressing him leisurely. Jaehyun raised his hips breathlessly, losing himself in Taeyong’s eyes, letting him tug them off completely. He was left naked, vulnerable in more ways than one, letting himself slip into that familiar embrace.

It made his chest tighten and his heart pound when Taeyong kissed him with such devotion, such sincerity, such passion. When his mouth trailed down his chest and abdomen, he felt his chest flush with arousal, with embarrassment, because his body didn’t look like it used to. He was still fit, still had a flat stomach, but he had lost the sharp ridges of muscle Taeyong used to kiss patiently, individually. Taeyong didn’t seem to mind.

When Taeyong slipped his fingers into him, one by one, slim fingers, patient, knowing that Jaehyun hadn’t done that in years, Jaehyun groaned, pleasure and discomfort and a melancholy in his chest because everything they were doing, it didn’t belong to them. It belonged to the past, it belonged to a summer forgotten.

Taeyong’s fingers left his body empty and impatient, and he kissed him softly, gently pushing into him. Jaehyun stopped breathing, that familiar breach too much for him to take. He bit down on Taeyong’s shoulder, his hands gripping at Taeyong’s back, clutching, leaving burning trails of red where he lost control and ran his fingernails over his skin in sheer desperation.

“You’re so beautiful,” Taeyong whispered against his mouth, and Jaehyun moaned breathily, kissed him harder.

Taeyong waited, rocking into his body only when Jaehyun let him, gentle at first, reminding him what it felt like, and slowly, slowly devolving into something carnal. Jaehyun kissed him breathlessly, moaned his name shamelessly, cupped his face and drank in the sight of those dark doe eyes and black hair. Pretty pink mouth. He had missed that, he realized. The spark they had, the love they shared, the overwhelming intimacy he felt when they made love, he had missed that, and he realized that all of that was still there. Exactly where they had left it. Untouched, untainted.

Taeyong was slowing down, and Jaehyun groaned, letting out a choked “Don’t fucking stop.”

Taeyong leaned in, right next to his ear he whispered, “I want you to fuck me, Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun’s stomach twisted with pleasure, and he pulled him in by the neck and kissed him hard.

“Not yet,” he breathed, pulling Taeyong’s hips closer, driving him deeper. “A little more, please, just a little.”

And Taeyong gave in, broke, crumbled, gave him what he wanted till he couldn’t keep his own desire down anymore. Jaehyun laughed breathlessly, stowing away the sight of his hyung’s desperation somewhere in a warm place in his chest, slipping two fingers into Taeyong’s mouth. When he pulled them out, wet and glistening, Taeyong drove his hips deep into Jaehyun, ground down in tight little circles that had his head spinning and his body thrumming, and he reached down over Taeyong’s back to press slick fingers to that warm little place and basked in the way Taeyong shivered.

 He pulled out, and Jaehyun almost whined at the loss. Jaehyun sat up, kissed him again and again and pushed Taeyong down, shifted behind him and pressed him face down into the mattress, pushing his legs apart. He ran his hands over that familiar body, familiar like his own, all his dips and curves, everything he used to worship so many years ago. He held him by the hips, his mouth trailing kisses down his spine, down, down, till Taeyong gasped. Jaehyun opened his mouth, feeling himself giving in to his desire, pushing his tongue against that warm, tight place shamelessly, till Taeyong pushed back against him, a moan in his throat, his elbows digging into the mattress, his knees parting wider.

When he was ready, worked open with lubed fingers and a wet tongue, Jaehyun pushed him to lie on his back and buried himself in Taeyong’s body. He still remembers the filthy moan that slipped from his lips at that moment. It set his skin on fire and he pushed in deeper instinctively, remembering what used drive him crazy, the angle, the pace, the force with which he pushed into him, over and over and Taeyong’s back arched under him. His beautiful ex-boyfriend, his lover of long ago, his partner, his everything.

His shoulders winging, his legs parting wider, his heels digging into the mattress, his hands gripping at Jaehyun’s biceps. Jaehyun kissed him deeply, their bodies joined together, a perfect fit. They came apart gasping, exhausted, sated.

Jaehyun straightened up, cleaned Taeyong up with a discarded t shirt, collapsed next to him with an exhausted groan, body buzzing with a familiar ache. Taeyong turned to face him, reached out and ran his fingertips over Jaehyun’s cheek, all soft and intimate and Jaehyun couldn’t help himself when he pulled Taeyong close, when he snuggled into the crook of his hyung’s neck, when he smiled against his skin and let Taeyong kiss his hair. That was it, that was home, that was always home.

“I missed you so much,” he murmured, pulling back to look at Taeyong.

“You said that already,” Taeyong said with a smile, letting Jaehyun stroke his cheekbone tenderly.

“Jaehyun?” Taeyong murmured, and the younger replied with a tired hum. Taeyong said nothing.

He didn’t know it then. He just let it slide that night, but Jaehyun knows now, that Taeyong meant to ask if he was staying. Staying the night. Staying with him.

Like all those years ago in a hotel room in Vietnam. He wishes that night he had just said, hyung, where would I go? But he made the right choice. Everything he did after that night was the right thing to do. He knows that now, as he presses the lock code into the panel, he’s home, and he did the right thing.

 

That night he woke up to the sound of his phone ringing. Over and over with a sort of desperation, an impatience. He blinked, Taeyong stirred, too, mumbling something sleepy and incoherent.

“Shh, sleep,” Jaehyun said, pressing a kiss to Taeyong’s forehead before getting out of bed. Taeyong whined when he felt Jaehyun’s weight lifting from beside him, and Jaehyun chuckled, crossing over to where his pants were tossed in a graceless heap by the mirror. He retrieved the phone from his pocket quickly, not wanting to disturb his hyung’s sleep anymore. But the name on the screen was Solbi’s, and he didn’t want to talk to her, not after the blissful hours he had just spent with Taeyong.

He silenced the call, and he would have tossed his phone aside, but for a moment he wondered, what if it was something important? An emergency?

Why was she calling at 3 in the morning?

He exhaled sharply, a little frustrated sound, and he answered the call, picking up his boxers and pulling them on with the phone jammed between his ear and his shoulder.

“Yeah?” he said softly, leaving the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

“Where are you?” she asked, and he could tell she had been crying. “You didn’t come home.”

“Solbi, what are you talking about, I haven’t been home in weeks,” he said, too tired for this conversation.

“You told me you were staying with your parents,” she said. “I called them to check on them and they said you weren’t home.”

Jaehyun stayed silent, exhaustion in his bones.

“Are you with Taeyong?”

“I am.”

She didn’t say a word, for a long while she didn’t speak, but Jaehyun heard her crying quietly. His heart would have hurt if it didn’t know her secrets. Instead, he found himself angry. He had stayed faithful, he had tried, she hadn’t. Their marriage was over, so how did it matter to her who he was with?

“I’m sorry,” she said. “For everything I did, I’m sorry. I should have talked to you. I should have tried harder. Jaehyun, I love you. Can we make this work? Please, I want to fix things.”

“Solbi, please, we talked about this.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry. Can we just… can we call it even?”

“What?” he said, not knowing what to make of that.

“I slept with my ex, you slept with yours. We’ve hurt each other, Jaehyun.”

For a second, he couldn’t believe what she said.

“We aren’t children. This isn’t a fucking game,” he said bitterly. “And this is different, we’re not together anymore. I didn’t fucking cheat, Solbi.”

“I’m still your wife,” she said. “You slept with him and you’re still married to me. You waited three weeks, three weeks after you left me, you fucked him.”

“So fucking what?” he snapped.

“So how long have you wanted to fuck him? What was I to you?”

“You were my wife and I loved you,” he said softly. “Don’t you dare accuse me of anything.”

She said nothing for a while. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I did what I did. Just give us a chance, Jae, baby, please just… we were happy. I was lonely, I was stupid, and I should have just talked to you. I want to be with you. Only you. I don’t want anyone else.”

He didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t want to hear that at all. It soothed his hurt, the fact that she was sorry, the fact that he had hurt her back, it soothed the ache of being taken for granted, being deceived and disrespected. But it hurt him in its own right, because it made him realize what they had come to.

“Jae?” she whispered. “Please, baby, you love me. I know you do, I know you want to be with me and I want to be with you, too. We wanted to start a family, remember?”

He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to hear any of this. What about Taeyong? What about everything they had just done?

“Our baby, half you, half me, we wanted that, didn’t we?”

 

He wanted that, he always wanted that.

But Taeyong? Was that revenge? Did he really do that to Taeyong? Was he no better than this woman he chose to hate for the past few weeks?

 

“Come back to me. Come back to me, let’s start over. I want to have your children, Jaehyun.”

His children, a daughter, maybe? And maybe a son, too.

Solbi could give him that. She was his wife.

 

“We can still have all that, Jae. Just come back to me.”

What if he went back to her? She was his wife, she made a mistake and she was sorry. Truly sorry. Wasn’t that enough?

No.

Was it?

No.

 

“Solbi,” he said, and he needed a few moments to figure out what to say next.

“Don’t say no,” Solbi replied. “Just give us a chance, Jae. Can we at least talk about this? Please? Come over tomorrow, or today, what time is it? Whatever, we can figure this out. Give it a chance, baby, please.”

“How can you say all that?” he wondered. “I… after you did what you did… and I did what I did. Do you really think we can work? How can you beg me to come back?”

“I love you,” she said. “That’s how I know it’ll work, and that’s how I can beg. I was stupid, Jae. I was so lonely and I just wanted to hurt you. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. And I know you wanted to hurt me, too, and that’s why Taeyong happened. I know that. We can work on this baby, just come back.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you like this,” he said softly. “I never meant to do that, I just…”

Jaehyun opened his mouth to say something else, but the soft sound of footsteps stopped him. He turned around, and Taeyong was standing there by the kitchen door, fully dressed.

“I… can we talk about this later? I’ll call you back,” he mumbled, and he cut the call before she could say a word.

He slid his phone onto the countertop, and stared at Taeyong wordlessly for a moment.

“You’re dressed,” he remarked lifelessly.

“I had a feeling we weren’t going back to bed,” he replied softly.

“Hyung,” Jaehyun implored, and had nothing to back it up with.

“She’s asking you to come back?”

Jaehyun nodded.

Taeyong stepped up to him quietly, cupped his face and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, and Jaehyun remembers screwing his eyes shut, all but melting in Taeyong’s arms.

“Go back to your wife,” he murmured. “I understand. Tell her I’m sorry, too.”

“Hyung, listen.”

“It’s alright Jaehyun. Go back to her. Start over. She can give you things I can’t.”

“Hyung…”

Nothing, nothing. What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to do?

“It’s almost morning,” Taeyong said. “Have breakfast with me? You can leave right after. I’ll make coffee, and I could fix us something to eat, and…”

Taeyong rambled. All his words, and nothing true came through.

Jaehyun stood there in silence.

 

And then, Jaehyun made the right choice. He did the right thing.

 

Jaehyun tiredly keys in the password. The lock beeps, and he turns the handle and enters his house, quiet, careful not to make any sound. He toes his shoes off silently, wiggling his toes about in a silent celebration the moment they’re freed, slipping his feet into his fluffy house slippers.

What a long fucking day, he thinks. Started at four in the morning, and now it’s past twelve, and fuck, it hasn’t ended yet. He’s drained. Physically, emotionally drained.

All those fights, all those triumphs and failures revisited.

All those decisions he made.

All the people he hurt.

All the people he lost.          

It doesn’t matter, he thinks.

He’s home now. Back to his family. And he’s content.

 

He takes one step into the house when a familiar rhythmic clicking sound echoes slightly in the quiet house, and his beautiful pet Great Dane comes padding towards him from the darkness of the living room. She sniffles and noses at his waist and puts her front paws up on his shoulders in a silent greeting. He staggers back under her weight with a tired grin.

“Hi, baby,” he whispers, and she rumbles out an acknowledgment, dropping back down. He chuckles, dropping a quick kiss on the smooth black fur between her eyes, and she greets him back with familiar little licks before she decides she’s fulfilled her responsibilities and she’d really like to sleep now. She gives him one last lick before turning and trotting off back into the living room.

“Good night, then?” he says with a laugh, his eyes following her retreating figure. And that’s when the soft glow of a small lamp in the living room catches his attention. Odd, he thinks. Usually when he comes home so late, the whole house is dark. He heads towards it, and he chuckles softly when a familiar figure comes into view, curled up on the couch. He sits down noiselessly in the little space left free on the couch, and for a moment, as he sits there watching the sleeping figure, he’s overcome with fondness, overcome with warmth.

He’s back to his family, and he’s so fucking content.

This was the right decision, he thinks again. Leaving Taeyong’s place that day, to talk to Solbi. That was the right decision. Sitting down with her, and apologizing for everything he did, and how he chose to handle things, that was the right thing to do.

He smiles, reaching out to trace that delicately shaped mouth, to slip his hand into that familiar brown hair and push it back, to let his eyes linger over the sharp cut of those cheekbones. A soft little hum reaches his ears and he smiles a little wider.

“You’re back.”

It’s a sleepy sort of murmur that sinks into the couch cushions.

“I’m back,” he replies. “Were you waiting for me?”

“I was. I missed you in the morning.”

Jaehyun chuckles softly. He can practically hear the pout in that voice.

“Well I’m back now, let’s go to bed,” he whispers, pressing tiny butterfly kisses to soft brown hair. Another sleepy hum.

His fingers curl around a slender hand, happily noting the glint of gold on an elegant ring finger before pressing his lips in devoted little kisses to the back of that hand, tugging to say stop being lazy, let’s go to bed.

“I bought Dalgona,” Jaehyun says, poking around in his bag and retrieving the brown paper bag, shaking it so the cookies rattle around inside. He opens up the bag and holds one out, chuckling at the excited gasp that follows.

 

He smiles, tired, but happy, so happy. This was the right decision. He made the right decision.

 

“What did you want to talk to me about?” he asks.

“Are you very tired? This might take a while.”

“I’m not tired,” he says with a little smile, something a little nervous. “You’re sure I’m not in trouble?”

A quiet laugh.

“You’re not in trouble.”

He smiles truer, but he’s still a little uneasy.

“What is this about, hyung, really?”

There’s a stretched silence filled with nothing but the sound of clothes rustling, and his lover sits up, apparently looking for the right words. And then, as if finally giving up on the right words:

“Kids.”

 

Kids. What?

Children. Babies. Half you, half me. An old-fashioned dream. An old promise.

That’s what she said that day when he and Solbi sat together to work things out. After he left Taeyong’s place.

“Let’s have kids,” she said back then.

And Jaehyun sat there, staring at her quietly, thinking, thinking. Half her, half him. His dream, everything he wanted when he first asked her to marry him. Everything he had ever wanted, a family, something of his own, some shared bond. Their legacy, his legacy, a little life he’d shape with his own hands.

Half Solbi and half Jaehyun.

And no Taeyong.

She saw his hesitation.

“Okay,” she said. “If you’re not ready yet, that’s okay. Whenever you’re ready, we can do it. I can give you that. That’s what I mean.”

He sat there blinking at her. And he felt his dream ring hollow.

He shook his head.

He remembers with a catch in his chest, the way he reached across the table to hold Solbi’s hand that day, the certainty with which he told Solbi he didn’t want those things with her anymore. He told her he was sorry for the way he had hurt her and the way things fell apart. He packed his bags and left her, turned his back on old-fashioned dreams.

That evening, he asked Taeyong to wait for him. He wouldn’t be too long, he said.

 

Jaehyun blinks. Kids. Children. Babies. It doesn’t make sense. He’s staring into lovely brown eyes and the words aren’t sinking in. In the dim light of his living room, sitting there with his work clothes and the fatigue of a monstrous day weighing his body down.

“What?” he says stupidly.

“Let’s adopt.”

“Hyung, what are you talking about?”

 

What is he talking about? What is Taeyong saying?

He remembers, he remembers everything. Marriage, children, he closed that chapter when he chose Taeyong.

After seven months away, he stood in front of Taeyong’s apartment, ringing the doorbell with his heart in his throat. He had taken seven months, away from everything. Away from everyone. Seven months to be sure of his feelings, to be sure he could leave his marriage behind, his dream of a family behind.

To be sure he only wanted those things if he had Taeyong to share it with. A family, a legacy, a little life they’d shape with their own hands.

He knew they couldn’t have those things. He knew they couldn’t adopt a child together. He knew they could never get married and they could never tell the world they were together. But it didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter, and he finally knew that.

Taeyong opened the door that day and Jaehyun’s heart hammered against his ribs, reaching past his chest for Taeyong’s familiar warmth.

He stood there wordlessly for a moment, staring at him with questioning eyes, and Jaehyun’s heart screamed, will you still have me? Have I been away too long?

“Hyung,” he said with a soft grin. “I thought about everything. I thought my ass off. And I’ve arrived at a conclusion. I don’t care about getting married and having children. I couldn’t care less about it, if all that means not having you in my life. You alone have made me happier than anything or anyone in the world, hyung. And even if we have to hide all our lives, even if we can never get married and start a family, I want you. If you’ll still have me. I want you.”

Taeyong still stood there wordlessly.

“That was a good speech,” he said thoughtfully, after a long silence.

“I know, I thought so, too,” Jaehyun said, and Taeyong chuckled lightly.

“Are you sure, Jaehyun?”

And Jaehyun reached down and pulled the hem of his pants up, and there under his somber black formals, was a flash of sickening yellow.

“You know it’s serious when the voodoo socks come out,” he said with an embarrassed grin, and Taeyong burst into laughter, pulling Jaehyun into his apartment and slamming the door shut behind them, kissing him breathless and then kissing him some more.

 

“I’m sorry I took so long,” Jaehyun said that night, a soft little whisper against Taeyong’s bare skin.

“You’re here now,” Taeyong whispered back.

And the chapter was closed. He and his hyung, reaching for happiness in each other.

No marriage.

No children.

No old-fashioned dreams.

 

 “Jaehyun…” Taeyong says.

“We talked about this already. I don’t need all that, I have you,” Jaehyun replies. This isn’t the first time they’ve argued about this. So many times before, Taeyong has told him to just leave because he can’t give Jaehyun what he wants.

“We can still have that, Jaehyunnie, listen to me,” Taeyong pleads. “I trust you, I love you, I want you to have everything you want, so listen to me.”

“Hyung, please, I’m tired. I don’t know how else to tell you I don’t need anything else,” he says listlessly. “I’m too tired to fight. Let’s go to bed, please.”

He stands, shuffling off towards their bedroom, too exhausted to lie, buried wishes aching deep in his chest, familiar, so familiar. He wants children. But he wants Taeyong more. That’s that.

 

He’s lying in bed, the lights turned down, waiting for Taeyong to join him. Ruby the second, their massive black Great Dane, lies curled up next to him, and Jaehyun absent mindedly scratches her behind the ear.

“Why is your dad such a pain in the ass, baby?” he whispers.

She whines, resting her head on his hip, and he laughs.

In the silence that follows, he’s acutely aware of the familiar shuffling footsteps entering the room, the door closing softly, the bed dipping under his hyung’s weight. Ruby climbs all over Taeyong and he indulges her for a moment before pushing her towards her bed by the nightstand. She pads away quietly, with a disappointed grunt at Taeyong’s rejection, and through all this, Jaehyun is resolutely pretending to be asleep.

Taeyong’s skinny arm drapes over his waist, and he feels his hyung cuddling up to him.

“I need to say something, Jaehyun,” Taeyong says softly. “Just hear me out?”

He’s silent for a moment, and then Jaehyun sighs.

“Don’t say anything stupid, hyung,” Jaehyun warns, his eyes still closed.

Taeyong chuckles and presses a quick kiss to Jaehyun’s cheek. “This isn’t a fight. I won’t tell you to leave. I just wanted to say, you’ve wanted this forever, Hyun,” he says gently. “I know that. And I never believed we could have that. I never had that kind of faith in our relationship. I was afraid of everything, baby, I thought nobody would understand, I thought our careers would be destroyed and… That’s changed now.”

Jaehyun rolls over to face Taeyong. “What’s changed, hyung?” he says miserably. “We’ve been over this. Even if we wanted to, it still isn’t legal.”

“Baby, we thought we’d never be able to get married, but you married me all the same, didn’t you?”

“Not legally,” Jaehyun points out.

“That doesn’t make it any less real,” he says, his hand sliding over Jaehyun’s chest till he finds the gold ring Jaehyun wears on a thin chain around his neck. Jaehyun blinks at him in the darkness. “I think we can do this, Jaehyun. If it’s with you, I can do this. Have kids, risk being found out. I don’t care anymore. I want this life with you.”

He regards Taeyong carefully. He remembers the day he asked Taeyong to marry him. All sweaty and sated and warm in each other’s arms, and he said hey, hyung, stay with me forever and Taeyong had smiled and nodded. The day after that, they picked out their rings together, and Taeyong wore his on his left ring finger, and Jaehyun wore his around his neck, tucked away inside his clothes where nobody could see. It all happened like a matter of fact, perfectly natural, nothing out of the ordinary. Their own promise, just for the two of them.

“I spoke to a friend,” Taeyong continues. “We can’t do this as a couple. But it’s still legal for one of us to adopt a child as a single parent. I wanted it to be you, because I know you wanted a little Jung in the world, but my friend said that since your work schedule is crazy, the adoption agency would give you a tough time about it. So I thought I could do it instead? Adopt a child under my name, as a single parent. Maybe. If you’re okay with that.”

Jaehyun doesn’t know what to say. The words aren’t quite sinking in. He was expecting this to be another miserable, long drawn out fight. He wasn’t expecting this. What is this? This doesn’t make sense. He closed this chapter when he chose Taeyong.

“Jaehyun? Say something.”

“Give me a second.”

Taeyong. His husband. His everything.

“A little Lee?” Jaehyun says.

Taeyong chuckles and nods. “Is that okay?”

Of course that’s fucking okay. So what if he wasn’t legally adopted by them both? So what if he didn’t have Jaehyun’s name? A little Lee. Lee Taeyong’s kid. Lee Taeyong, his husband, his everything. Of course that’s okay, that’s more than okay, that’s incredible.

“Hyung,” Jaehyun says softly. “Are you sure?”

Taeyong nods.

“Are you very, very, fucking sure?”

“Yeah,” Taeyong says with half a laugh, reaching down to pull the hem of his pajamas up, and Jaehyun sees a flash of sickening yellow in the darkness of their bedroom. “I want to do this for us.”

“You want this too?”

“Voodoo socks to boot,” Taeyong says softly. Jaehyun blinks some more.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and it slowly begins to sink in that Taeyong is giving him all his dreams back. Everything, one by one.

Their house. Warm and cozy, yellow lights and big windows. Sunlight streaming in and lighting up a thousand motes, lighting up Taeyong’s skin, and when it rains they sit together with warm drinks and blankets and watch it pour, at night they sit together and watch the city light up.

Taeyong’s scent on the sheets, his grey armchair in the corner, the old couch where they made love so many times. The big kitchen where they make their morning coffee and cook dinner when they have the time, argue too often over what really goes into an omelet. Taeyong says tomatoes, Jaehyun gasps like it hurts his sentiments.

Their bedroom, it has seen a few fights. A few turned backs and a few sullen remarks. And more than a few long, long nights of sexiling Ruby to the living room, making love till the morning hours. Even now, Jaehyun moans and gasps like the first time, makes Taeyong crazy just like he used to. Even now after all these years.

And Ruby. Ruby the second. She was part of the dream, too. Although when Jaehyun said let’s get a dog, he was imagining a little terrier or a pug or something small and pocket sized. But when they went to the shelter and Taeyong met this abandoned Great Dane puppy, and he looked up at Jaehyun with that tiny little thing in his arms, Jaehyun melted. And even when she grew out of being a tiny little thing into something the size of a small horse, they loved her. Even now, when she forgets how big she really is, and tries to climb into their laps only to knock the air right out of their chests, even now they love her.

Marriage. Half you, half me. He has that with Taeyong. His warm little kisses early in the morning. His skinny arms easing Jaehyun’s burdens. His quiet support, his patience and his presence of mind. His stupid laugh and his terrible jokes. His hyung, his lover, his Taeyong, his husband.

And now children. Half you, half me. The only thing he wanted that he thought Taeyong couldn’t give him. The one desire he buried, because Taeyong gave him too much to begin with, and he couldn’t ask for more. The sacrifice he thought he made to keep Taeyong in his life. Taeyong is willing to give that a shot now, too. Taeyong is willing to try, to make him happy. His husband, his Taeyong.

“Thank you, hyung, thank you so much,” he says again, and again, and wraps his arms around Taeyong.

“I’ll talk to my friend again in the morning and have the paperwork drawn up? He said it’ll be a couple of months before I get an interview and then maybe another year or more before we have our baby…”

“Our baby?” Jaehyun says softly, and he doesn’t realize he’s tearing up till Taeyong smiles softly at him and kisses him.

“Our baby.”

“You’re amazing, you know that? You’re incredible.”

“I love you,” Taeyong says softly.

“I love you, too, hyung,” Jaehyun says, kissing Taeyong softly, gently, with everything he has, and he feels the hurt in his chest easing, disappearing, and he thinks this time it’s gone for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU SO MUCH OMFG.  
> No, really. Thank you for all your wonderful feedback. It really meant a lot to me <3 <3  
> I hope you enjoyed the story <3


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